2023-04-29 12:00:14
“On the cards, neither of them looks like an outright winner,” said the Seer Diego Parra, consulted by the newspaper ‘ABC’, of Asunción. Television astrologers and pollsters seem to agree. The presidential election in Paraguay they’re so close that no one dares to anticipate if the almost eternal colorado partycon santiago pena as a candidate, he will remain in power, or the candidate of the center-left alliance will prevail, Ephraim Alegre.
This Sunday they are also chosen 17 governors, 45 senators and 80 deputies. But all eyes are on the bigger fight for the Executive. Some appeal to the continuity of the ‘coloradism’in power since 1954, and with a brief interruption between 2008 and 2012, resolved with a conspiracy against the ex-bishop who became president, Fernando Lugo. The others, to Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), to which Alegre belongs, followers of Lugo and representatives of dozens of organizations, fly the banner of change.
Paraguay has experienced strong economic growth on the basis of agricultural exports, to the frenetic pace of deforestation. The hydroelectric power is another of the factors of this increase that allowed reduce by 20 points a poverty that continues to plague a quarter of its population. Strong social inequality is, however, the hallmark of a country that suffered 35 years of dictatorship with the General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-89), and whose process of democratization It has been slow and complex.
“The third time is the charm,” says Alegre, former Minister of Public Works of Lugo, about his new attempt to displace the ruling party from the presidency. In 2013, he got 37% of the vote. Five years ago he reached 43.04%. The polls give her a minimal advantage over his main rival. Those around Alegre believe that this time the conditions have been met for victory at the polls. “I will never give up, I am sure that Paraguayans deserve a country of solidarity, with development and social justice,” said the flag bearer of the Concertación for a New Paraguay. His fate is partly tied to the behavior of voters more inclined to the left and who were hesitant to endorse or follow Jorge Quereyfourth in the polls.
In my government, the people will be president of Paraguay. That is why La Cambioneta is on the paths of change to listen to our compatriots. pic.twitter.com/c3ogJX2ilc
— Efrain Alegre (@EfrainAlegre) January 13, 2023
The challenges of the ruling party
the former senator Paraguayan ‘Payo’ Cubas is third in preferences, with 14%. His conservative populism can get voters out of Peña. “I keep seeing everything in red,” said Xango tarot reader Mae Nelly, and she ruled out a horizon of danger. The National Republican Alliance (ANR), the official name of the ‘colorados’ seems to be part of an immutable nature. The overthrow of Stroessner, in February 1989, had something of pantomime. The blow was carried out by his in-law and his right hand, the general andres rodriguez, not only pro-government but corrupt to the core. Once they asked him about the origin of his large fortune and he answered “savings”.
The desire for everything to stay in the family has been confirmed again with the current president, Mario Abdo, son of Stroessner’s private secretary. 17 years ago that profoundly anti-communist general died in Brazil. His last name no longer arouses the controversies of yesteryear. He ‘colorado’ of discord is currently Horace Cartes, who ruled between 2013 and 2018 and was initially only associated with cigarette smuggling. The United States Treasury Department sanctioned him last January for considering him responsible for the “rampant corruption that undermines Paraguayan democratic institutions” as well as having ties to Hezbollah.
Peña was Minister of Finance of Maps, who is also suspected of having had relations with organized crime, especially drug trafficking. Alegre has not stopped remembering that Cartes and his dauphin are faces of the same illegality coin that has meant “money laundering, smuggling and drug trafficking.”
Together we will work for the country we deserve. #SantiPresidente#VamosAEstarMejor pic.twitter.com/xvfOfP49hN
— James Peña (@SantiPenap) April 27, 2023
The official candidate has found himself in more than one bind when they invoke the name of the former president and his record. That is why he has preferred to present himself above all as a family advocate and Catholic traditions. Faced with the possibility that the US justice system requests the extradition of his political godfather, Peña said that he will be “respectful of the Constitution and Paraguayan laws.”
The international projection
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The influence of Brazil in Paraguay it is recognizable politically as in the dark areas they share. He drug group First Joint Command (PCC), Originally from São Paulo, he has become strong on the other side of the border. Alegre has not stopped pointing out the need for a joint approach to a larger problem. If he wins the Concertación, he will also seek to improve the relations of that country with Argentinawhere an estimated two million Paraguayans live.
He great international challenge of Paraguaywhoever wins, has to do with taiwan. stroessner established strong ties with the island to the point that in Assumption stands a statue of Chiang Kai-shek. He economic weight of China in the region has turned that monument into something more than an eccentricity. Alegre has considered establishing ties with Beijing more insistently: “We cannot give up one of the largest markets in the world.”
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