Paraguayans choose their president for the next five years on Sunday in an election in which the hegemony of the Colorado Party (PC) is being questioned with the same intensity as it was in 2008. The polls are very uneven, but all agree to point out that only two candidates have options to win: the Colorado Santiago Peña and the opponent EfraÃn Alegre. Both concentrate around 34% of voting intention, according to polls.
At 44, Peña is an economist and was Minister of Finance (2015-2017) during the government of Horacio Cartes, president of the party.
For his part, Alegre is a lawyer who served as Minister of Public Works (2008-2011), when the formation he now presides over, the historic Partit Liberal Radical Autèntic (PLRA), occupied the government for the first time since of 1947. Aged 60, it is the third time that Alegre has run for president, after the 2013 and 2018 elections, in which he came second in both.
Despite the fact that both the Associació Nacional Republicana (ANR) – a name that the PC also receives – and the PLRA are traditional parties, the historical hegemony of the first – including the long dictatorship of the Colorado Alfredo Stroessner – means that the second formation be perceived by Paraguayans as more progressive.
In fact, Alegre has the support of part of the left-wing Front Guasú, which in 2008 managed to break the red hegemony with ex-bishop Fernando Lugo, who then assumed power in coalition with the PLRA. Later, the liberals participated in the betrayal in Lugo, and Alegre himself supported the controversial parliamentary impeachment of the religious in 2012, which was then described by the progressive governments of the region as a parliamentary coup.
Despite this, Lugo has been photographed with Alegre during the campaign, although he has been ambiguous regarding direct support for the opposition candidate, who is running with the Concertació Nacional coalition, of fourteen parties.
Peña, who served for more than two decades in the PLRA, switched to the ANR in 2016 and has now become Horacio Cartes’ bet for the Coloradoans to retain power.
Cartes, a billionaire entrepreneur in banking, tobacco and food who presided over the between 2013 and 2018, is accused of corruption by the United States Treasury Department and has exercised for the past five years the counterpower to President Mario Abdo , also colorado . In fact, Peñaes imposed the training primaries on the candidate who was endorsed by Abdo, the ex-evangelical bishop Arnoldo Wiens.
There are three more outstanding candidates, although only one of them is likely to surprise, as according to the latest polls he has around 24% of the intention to vote. This is the controversial ex-ultra-right senator Payo Cubas.
The fourth and fifth places in the polls are occupied, respectively, by Abdo’s former foreign minister, Euclides Acevedo – who receives the support of a sector of the Front Guasú -, and by the exporter of Real Zaragoza, the populist José Luis Chilavert; each of them with less than 3% in the polls.
