Paraguayans elect their next president this Sunday

Paraguayans go to the polls this Sunday starting at seven in the morning in a contest to elect the next president between the conservative Colorado Party and a coalition of heterogeneous political and social forces that came together with the intention of putting him aside for second time in 76 years.

Polls are scheduled to close at 4:00 p.m. local time and official results are expected to be released two hours after closing.

Some 15,380 electronic machines were enabled in schools throughout the country to receive the vote of 4.7 million voters. For the first time, this mechanism is used at the national level to elect the successor to President Mario Abdo Benítez in a single electoral round for the period 2023-2028.

The media reported that the outgoing president, who does not have the right to re-election, was among the first to vote. Electoral Justice of Paraguay reported on its Twitter account that the elections began “normally” throughout the country.

The agency also indicated that Paraguayans in Spain had begun to vote on Sunday.

When exercising his right to vote, President Abdo Benítez said: “May the great winner be the Paraguayan nation. Everyone’s participation is very important, today is the day we have to be protagonists in building the future of the nation”.

Paraguayans come to this day after a campaign often described by the media as listless as many express uncertainty about the nation’s future. On Sunday local media reported some minor incidents in some Asunción schools between supporters of both forces for the placement of the ballot boxes.

The conservative Colorado Party has ruled since 1947, including as the political support of dictator Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), with the exception of a brief period of progressive tinge led by ex-bishop Fernando Lugo in 2008 and ended early in 2012 with an impeachment trial. .

Its candidate is Santiago Peña, a 44-year-old economist who was sponsored by former president and magnate Horacio Cartes (2013-2018), the strongman of Paraguayan politics who was recently declared a “significantly corrupt person” by the United States.

“Today we define a country model,” Peña said in a message read at his campaign command before voting. “We choose a Paraguay that plans its future to take the big leap we need or a country that navigates improvisation.”

The main challenge to the hegemony of the Colorado Party appears the Agreement for a New Paraguay with the candidate Efraín Alegre, 60 years old and leader of the traditional Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA) and staunch opponent of Cartes.

This coalition seeks this Sunday to remove the Colorado party from power, in elections marked by allegations of corruption and the convenience of maintaining or not maintaining the alliance with Taiwan.

Alegre, who is in his third attempt to reach the presidency, is supported by numerous political and social organizations from the center-right to the left that seek to capitalize on the social disenchantment due to endemic corruption, lousy health and education services exposed during the pandemic of COVID-19 and insecurity in the face of the advance of drug crime.

“We know who we are up against. We are going to defeat abundant money that comes from organized crime and illegality,” Alegre told reporters at his party offices. “Our adversary is not the Colorado Party but the dirty money of organized crime.”

Paraguay boasts a relatively stable economy, but with structural problems that were out of the question during the campaign: labor informality that affects 7 out of 10 workers; poverty of 24.7%, tax evasion and drug trafficking, among others.

[Contiene información de AP y Reuers]

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.