2023-05-01 02:20:27
He colorado party returned to assert without incident, almost as an administrative procedure, its territorial and political power in Paraguay. According to the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP), when 96% of the polling stations were scrutinized, its candidate for president, Santiago Pena, He confirmed what was expected: he won with 43% of the votes. Ephraim Alegre, the standard bearer of a broad center-left alliance that raised the slogan of change, reached 27.70%. He right-wing populist Paraguayo Cubas reached third place with 21.62% of the adhesions. The conservative vote in its different options represented almost 65% of the men and women who went to the polls in a country where only one round is held.
“Congratulations to the Paraguayan people for their great participation in this election day and to President-elect Santi Peña. We will work to start an orderly and transparent transition that strengthens our institutions and the country’s democracy,” said the current head of state, Mario Abdo Benitez, son of the dictator’s private secretary Alfredo Stroesner.
Peña had been Minister of Finance of the Government of Horace Cartes (2013-2018), whom the United States Treasury Department sanctioned last January for being responsible for Paraguayan “rampant corruption that undermines democratic institutions,” as well as having ties to Hezbollah. Cartés is also suspected of having relations with organized crime, especially drug trafficking. These antecedents have had no influence on the elections this Sunday. “The country is in very good hands”said Cartés, like one more winner, to the point that he celebrated with his dolphin and in front of the cameras.
The 44-year-old winner, of technocratic lineage, was also from the Central Bank and represented his country at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He won by invoking the defense of a double tradition: the political and, also, the family, put in check by the modernizing discourses that also frighten the Catholic Church. Paraguay is a kind of regional anomaly, the country where discussions on parity, abortion, equal marriage, sex education in schools and the fight against gender violence have had less space.
The contest was marked by crossed accusations of illegalities. There was no shortage of minor brawls between supporters of one candidate and the other. The winner of the elections He will take office on August 15. with the certainty that everything finally remains in the “family”, the red brotherhood that, despite having conflicting leaders, at the time of the definitions buckled behind “Santi”, as they call the winner of the elections. The National Republican Association (ANR), the official name of that party, is an institution imperturbable over time in Paraguay. He has governed for 70 years, half of them under a bloody regime, that of Stroessner, uninterruptedly, except for a four-year hiatus, the administration of the former bishop-turned-president, Fernando Lugo, which began in 2008 and ended in 2012 with a parliamentary coup.
failed expectations
“Today we are going to make history in Paraguay”, Alegre had said, before the polling station closed. He claimed victory on the basis of partial information. The enthusiasm of the candidate of the Coalition for a New Paraguay, and at the same time leader of the centennial Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA) proved unfounded as the hours passed. “We respect the verdict. The fight continues,” he said as a loser, saddened, when night fell, and called on the opposition not to be discouraged and to remain united.
In addition to the president and vice president, Paraguayans elected 45 incumbent senators and 30 alternates through electronic voting; 80 titular deputies and 80 substitutes; 17 governors, and 257 titular members and another 257 alternate members for departmental boards.
The Paraguayan economy is based on exports of soybeans and beef. The matrix of growth has as its hidden face a constant deforestation. Last year, the GDP had a decline of 0.3%. This year it will rise 4.8%. Based on these projections, the winner of the elections promised to put “more money in the pockets of Paraguayans.”
More of the same
The triumph of a party merged with the same State did not surprise anyone. “In these last ten years of the Colorado government, the Paraguayan population has had to learn to live with two factions of the same party – Abdism and Chartism – seeing them accuse each other of crimes and robberies with name and without end. Faced with the imminence of political trials or jail itself, both Colorado currents have embraced to save themselves, to later be accused again of the same punishable acts in an endless time loop. We have witnessed mutual disclosures of delinquencies and delinquents,” said the Asunción newspaper ABC in its Sunday editorial, anticipating the verdict of the polls. “We have seen and heard them denounced by the media for crimes that are punishable by jail and have reached the ultimate to make complaints before the same Judiciary or the Prosecutor’s Office. However, these same factions embrace each other like a drunkard to the post, to promise the Republic of Paraguay that they can deliver a better country than the one in which they have forced us to live in recent years. Hard to believe“.
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