The right-wing economist Santiago Peña, of the ruling Colorado Party, won the presidential elections in Paraguay by a wide margin this Sunday against the opposition Efraín Alegre, after a campaign marked by accusations of corruption against the ruling party.
Peña obtained 42% of the votes while Alegre, supported by a center-left coalition, obtained 27%, according to the electoral authority, after counting almost all the votes.
In third place was Paraguayo Cubas, an anti-establishment right-wing ex-legislator, with 22%. Participation was 63%.
Peña, 44, must replace President Mario Abdo Benítez as of August 15, for a period of five years.
In his first words, he thanked former president Horacio Cartes (2013-18), his political godfather, sanctioned by the United States as “significantly corrupt,” for the victory.
“Thank you very much, my dear president of the National Republican Association (ANR, Colorado Party), Horacio Cartes. I admire the immensity of your stubborn dedication to the party,” he said in his company, before the supporters who cheered them at the headquarters of the campaign command .
Shortly after the announcement of the electoral justice, Alegre conceded his defeat.
“The effort has not been enough. The majority of the people voted for the change, but due to the division it has not been possible. The citizens tell us that, united, we are the majority,” he told the press.
red hegemony
The Colorados also had the largest vote in Congress, with 43% of the votes for the Senate, compared to 23% for the Concertación de Alegre and 11% for the National Crusade of Cubas. The electoral authority has not yet announced how the seats in the lower house are distributed.
Of 17 governorates, 14 remained in power of the oficialistas.
The Colorado Party has governed Paraguay for most of the last seven decades, under dictatorship and under democracy, with a single interruption during the government of leftist Fernando Lugo (2008-12), who was ousted in impeachment a year before finishing his term. mandate.
The Colorados “in adversity know how to overcome obstacles to remain in power,” Roberto Codas, a political and economic analyst at the Business Development consultancy, told AFP.
“In this case, ‘Payo’ Cubas helped him, as he remained as the third force. He took votes from both groups, but the most affected were the opponents of the Concertación,” he said.
– ‘Significantly corrupted’ –
The electoral campaign took place simultaneously with US sanctions against some of the most important Colorado leaders, such as Cartes and Vice President Hugo Velázquez.
Paraguay, in the center of South America, is considered a transit point for drugs to Brazil and Argentina for their departure to Europe and Asia.
In 2022, the anti-mafia prosecutor Marcelo Pecci and the mayor José Carlos Acevedo were assassinated, in crimes attributed to drug trafficking.
Although Paraguay has one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America – with a forecast of 4.5% of GDP for 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund – poverty reaches 24.7%, with enormous inequalities.
Peña has proposed creating 500,000 jobs. “Starting tomorrow (Monday) we will begin to design the Paraguay that we all want, without gross inequalities or unfair social asymmetries. We have a lot to do,” Peña said in his victory speech.
For economic analyst Rubén Ramírez, the Peña government will be “comfortable” for investors, who value Paraguay’s economic stability.
“He is young, he was a member of the Council of the Central Bank, he was Minister of Finance, a former official of the International Monetary Fund, and he knows the codes of the development of a country facing the outside world in economic matters,” he said.
Between Taiwan and Jerusalem
Controversial foreign policy issues were also touched on in the campaign.
After Peña’s victory, the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called in a statement to “deepen” bilateral relations and said it admired “the qualities of political maturity that the Paraguayan people demonstrated by successfully completing this election.”
Peña announced days ago that he intends to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, by announcing his willingness to move the headquarters of his embassy to that city again, a measure that, in line with Donald Trump, Cartes had taken at the end of his government and that Abdo reversed.
The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, contacted Peña by telephone to congratulate him after the victory.
“I communicated by telephone with the elected president Santiago Peña, whom I congratulated on the victory in Paraguay,” wrote the Argentine president. Peña also received greetings from the presidents of Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, among others.
