Asuncion, May 3. More than 100 people have been arrested in Paraguay as a result of the riots and mobilizations carried out by groups dissatisfied with the results of the general elections on Sunday, the Public Ministry reported this Wednesday.
Among the people apprehended is a police officer and four minors, prosecutor Fátima Capurro, from the Specialized Unit for Punishable Acts Against the Security and Coexistence of People of the Public Ministry, told journalists.
“The minors are located to the parents so that they can, under the act, responsibly hand over their children and with a warning that they also do not return to the demonstration because next time, perhaps, we will have to charge them,” said.
Capurro added that “there is no problem” with people demonstrating peacefully and without endangering the lives of passers-by.
The demonstrations in Paraguay began on Monday night in different parts of its geography after the former independent candidate Paraguayo Cubas denounced an alleged “fraud” in the general elections, in which the ruling party Santiago Peña prevailed in the presidential elections and the ruling Colorado Party conquered the majority of the Senate and 15 of the 17 governorships of the country.
For their part, former candidates Efraín Alegre and Euclides Acevedo, who finished in second and fourth place, respectively, requested a manual count and audit of the electronic voting computer system used in the general elections on Sunday.
The Superior Court of Electoral Justice (TSJE) filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Public Ministry against protesters who have staged riots and mobilizations.
In the complaint, the TSJE indicated that the names and information of the leaders of the protesters could be identified through journalistic notes, recordings of television media, social networks and radio media audio from May 1 and 2, 2023.
Those on Sunday were the first general elections to have electronic voting machines, a system that was released experimentally in 2020 with the elections of the Council of the Magistracy. EFE
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