2023-04-30 02:00:04
For only the second time in more than seven decades, will Paraguay experience an alternation? Sunday April 30, more than 4.7 million voters are called to go to the polls, during a presidential election in a round. They will have to choose, in particular, between Santiago Peña, of the National Republican Association, commonly called the Colorado Party (right), and the coalition of the center Concertation for a new Paraguay, carried by the candidacy of Efrain Alegre.
While the Colorado Party, already in power during the military dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), is accustomed to elections without suspense, this ballot appears open for the first time since 2008 and the election of the center left. The polls are tight. Some give Santiago Peña the winner, others a tie with Efrain Alegre, and others finally an advantage for the latter.
Santiago Peña, 44, economist, former finance minister (2015-2017) and former member of the Central Bank (2000-2009), is posing as an investment candidate. Its program promises the creation of 500,000 jobs, free childcare centers to allow mothers to work or study, a « global » against drug trafficking and consumption and access to housing. In February, he greeted, in an interview with the Brazilian newspaper SheetTHE “years of stability” of the military dictatorship, guilty of human rights violations.
Right back
For several months, the seat of the right seems shaken. In December 2022, the Colorado Party split in the primaries, in which Santiago Peña emerged victorious. If the latter plays the card of dynamism and a certain generational renewal, he does not manage to distance himself from his mentor and leader of the party, former president Horacio Cartes (2013-2018).
This wealthy businessman was considered “significantly corrupt” by the US State Department in July 2022. He is also accused by Washington of having links with Hezbollah, a Lebanese party considered terrorist by the United States. Horacio Cartes is thus hit with financial sanctions by the US Foreign Assets Control Office. Its companies are prohibited from transactions with the United States. Accusations of corruption which also targeted the vice-president of the country, Hugo Velazquez, resulting in his withdrawal from the primary of the party.
Facing Santiago Peña, Efrain Alegre, a 60-year-old lawyer, former parliamentarian and former minister of public works and communications (2008-2011), is seeking the presidency for the third time. He had failed, in 2018, against the current president, from the Colorado Party, Mario Abdo Benitez.
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