ASUNCION, April 28 (Reuters) – Paraguayan will celebrate on Sunday general elections andn which the conservative Colorado Party in government will be challenged by a center-left coalition seeking alternation after 15 years.
The following are the main presidential candidates in the race, which will be decided by a single round. The president-elect will take office on August 15.
* Represents the National Republican Association/Colorado Party, the group that governed the country for the last seven decades with the exception of the period 2008-2013. He is a 44-year-old economist who worked for el Central Bank of Umbrellaand and the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
* He was Minister of Finance in the government of former President Horacio Cartes, who currently chairs the centennial group and is considered the power behind the candidate.
* Proposes to create jobs, control inflation and formalize the economy without raising taxes. Analysts believe he is a good manager but doubt he has any independence from Cartes.
* As president of the traditional Liberal Party, He heads a coalition made up of center-left parties and movements, as well as independents. It is his third attempt to reach the presidency after having been a candidate in 2013 and 2018.
* A lawyer by profession, Alegre, 60, was deputy, Senator and Minister of Public Works. With a serious and formal appearance, he is considered an efficient administrator but could have serious difficulties governing if he is elected together with a Congress with a Colored majority.
* He proposes lowering the electricity tariff, launching social plans and changing relations with Taiwan to get closer to China and thus favor exports of soybeans and beef, which are crucial for the country.
* He is a political leader of the area of the triple frontier with Brazil and Argentina, in the southeast of the country. He was elected senator in 2018 but his colleagues removed him from office after a series of scandals in which he attacked a departmental councilor, a police officer and asked to kill 100,000 Brazilians.
* Before being a legislator, he hit a magistrate with a belt in front of whom he had to give a statement and then defecated in the secretariat of the same court. The 61-year-old politician uses the social networks to publicize his proposals and analysts believe that he has garnered sympathy among voters dissatisfied with the traditional leaders.
* Declares himself an anarchist and proposes to reform the Constitution to change the current electoral system for one of indirect suffrage and govern with the Armed Forces without the participation of Congress.
* He was Minister of the Interior and Chancellor in the current government of the President Mario Abdo. In his beginnings in politics, he was a member of the left and later was a deputy and senator in the years that followed the overthrow of the dictator Alfredo Stroessner.
* Despite the fact that the polls prior to the election place him as an almost testimonial candidate, he refused to join the ranks of the National Concertation and continued with his candidacy. His partner for the vice presidency is Jorge Querey, former president Fernando Lugo’s doctor.
He is probably the most successful player in the history of the Paraguayan soccer. He played in the World Cups in France in 1998 and South Korea-Japan in 2002 as goalkeeper and captain of the national team. The International Federation of Football History and Statistics recognized him as the best goalkeeper of the 20th century.
* After hanging up his gloves in 2004, he became an entrepreneur and later decided to enter politics as an independent. The 57-year-old candidate proposes to improve education, reform justice and fight corruption.
With information from EFE.
