Tuesday April 25, 2023 | 6:02 p.m.
On April 30, Paraguayans will go to the polls to elect a president. The leading candidates are Santiago Peña (Colorado Party-ANR) and Efraín Alegre (Concertación para un Nuevo Paraguay), who has the support of former President Fernando Lugo. Whoever is elected will have a five-year term, with no possibility of re-election. In the neighboring country there is no second round, so the candidate who obtains the most votes will take office on August 15.
It will be time for the polls, because the real election began last year with the United States in a key role. The northern country exhibited a new and powerful weapon to order local politics: the designation of “significantly corrupt.” Thus, with a simple statement delivered from the Embassy to the press, he left out of competition the current vice president in office Hugo Velázquez, who appeared with many chances, and injured the Colorado Party in its sustainability base, by putting in the same list to the incumbent Horacio Cartes, Peña’s political godfather.
The thing about Cartes, who governed between 2013 and 2018, deserves a separate mention. The United States declared him “significantly corrupt” and barred him and his entire family from entering the country. In addition, he was disqualified from operating personally and his companies in any credit institution that controls the northern country. The economic damage to the business pool was done. Consequence: in the first months of this 2023 Cartes ended up selling all his companies. However, he took care of continuing to lead the Colorado Party as president.
Power is something that the millionaire leader does not want to give up. It is believed that he continues to be the main financier of the Colorado candidate’s campaign, even under the watchful eye of the US Embassy, which is demanding that local courts control party spending. Cartes was long ago under US scrutiny for trademark counterfeiting, but now it accuses him of being related to organized crime and terrorist organizations.
head to head
Santiago Peña (Colorado Party) was Minister of Finance during the Cartes government and prevailed over the current president’s candidate, Mario Abdo Benítez, who had to find a replacement at the last minute after his vice president was annulled by the US. .
His proposals basically go through three points: control inflation, recover economic growth (in 2022 it closed with growth -0.3%) and improve the quality of life of Paraguayans, generating 500,000 new jobs.
Efraín Alegre represents an alliance of 14 opposition parties and organizations that came together with the aim of ending the supremacy of Coloradism. He proposes taking advantage of the energy from the Itaipu and Yacyretá dams for development with benefits to industries and SMEs. He also proposes to recover free healthcare for Paraguayans, a shortcoming that the Covid 19 epidemic exposed.
This is the third time that Alegre is running for the presidency. In 2013 he obtained 37.11% and in 2018 43.04%, always behind the Colorado candidate. The current polls indicate a parity between the two contenders, although some political scientists speak of the moment and the opportunity that the Concertación candidate has, especially after the strong intervention of the US Embassy.
According to the same surveys, in third place would be Paraguayan “Payo” Cubas, described by the local media as a right-wing and populist leader. The one who also decided to try politics is the former goalkeeper for Vélez Sarsfield and the Paraguayan team, José Luis Félix Chilavert, who heads the formula for the Youth Force Youth Party.
the other candidates
-Jorge Humberto Gómez Otaño and Noelia Núñez UNACE Party.
– Euclides Acevedo and Jorge Querey for the Political Movement of the New Republic-
-Juan Felix Romero Lovera and Catalina Ramírez Alvarenga for the Humanist and Solidarity Movement.
– Luis Talavera Alegre and Celso Álvarez Amarilla for the National Party UNÁMONS.
– Oscar Cañete and Luis Wilfrido Arce for Paraguay Green Party.
– Prudencio Burgos and Leona Guaraní for the National People’s Party.
-Alfredo Machuca and Justina Noguera for the Citizen Patriotic Coordinator Independent Movement.
– Rosa Bogarín and Herminio Lesme for Heirs Democratic Socialist Party.
– Aurelio Martínez Cabral and David Sánchez for Join Paraguay.
What awaits the new president?
Apart from the growing insecurity (drug trafficking and hit men), the next government will have to face a country that comes from a stagnant economy, which has not happened for decades, with serious structural flaws and a marked increase in external indebtedness that reaches 33 .8 percent of GDP (2021 ECLAC report).
According to the World Bank, weather conditions that affected agricultural and hydropower exports, the poor performance of its trading partners, and the COVID-19 pandemic affected growth in recent years, reducing GDP growth from the average 4 .4% between 2003 and 2018 to 0.7% between 2019 and 2022.
The year 2022 closed with a growth of -0.3%, but as climatic conditions normalize, growth of 4.8% is projected for 2023, according to the same report.
“The poverty rate is at 19%, returning to its pre-pandemic levels, but the drought, high inflation (9.8%) and the reduction in economic assistance to the poorest related to the pandemic, made that extreme poverty will increase from 4.1% in 2021 to 5.2% in 2022”, the report describes.
For the World Bank, although it values macroeconomic stability, Paraguay has significant challenges. Using data from before the pandemic, the World Bank’s Human Capital Project estimated that a child born in Paraguay in 2020 would only achieve 53% of the productivity that they could have achieved if they had full access to health and education. This result is lower than the regional averages and those of upper-middle-income countries.
Significantly corrupt
The “significantly corrupt” designations made by the United States against former President Horacio Cartes and Vice President Hugo Velázquez is a copy of the policy implemented by the State Department in Central America. In Paraguay there is already talk of the “Central Americanization” of US foreign policy.
A common point is the fight against corruption through sanctions against political actors, as occurred in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, said foreign policy specialist Julieta Heduvan in statements to the neighboring country’s media. In Paraguay there were already other designations. In 2019, former Colorado senator Óscar González Daher and former Attorney General Francisco Javier Diaz Verón were designated and, in 2021, Colorado congressman Ulises Quintana.
This almost direct intervention by the United States in the political life of Paraguay at electoral times would imply, for some observers, the end of that country’s historical support for the Partico Colorado.
The accepted explanation is that the US seeks to improve government habits with assistance to the Judiciary and support for judges and prosecutors to combat financial crimes, with the aim of fighting corruption, strengthening democracies and thus ensuring their investments and support financial.
“Obviously the United States is not a disinterested actor. In international relations there is no disinterest in actions, never,” said Enduvan, who has a degree in International Relations and a specialist in Paraguayan Foreign Policy.
