Paraguayans elect their president for the next five years this Sunday, in elections where the hegemony of the Colorado Party (PC) is questioned with the same intensity as it was in 2008. The polls are very different but they all agree in which only two candidates have a chance of winning: the Colorado Santiago Peña and the opponent Efraín Alegre. Both concentrate around 34% of voting intentions, according to the 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 party he now chairs, the historic Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), took office for the first time since 1947. Aged 60 It is the third time that Alegre has run for president, after the 2013 and 2018 elections, finishing second in both.
Although both the National Republican Association (ANR) –a name also given to the PC– and the PLRA are traditional parties, the historical hegemony of the first –including the long dictatorship of Colorado Alfredo Stroessner– means that the second formation is perceived by Paraguayans as more progressive.
In fact, Alegre is supported by a part of the leftist Guasú Front, which in 2008 managed to break the Colorado hegemony with ex-bishop Fernando Lugo, who then assumed power in coalition with the PLRA. Subsequently, the liberals participated in the betrayal of Lugo, and Alegre himself supported the controversial parliamentary dismissal of the priest in 2012, a fact that was then labeled 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 as to his direct support for the opposition candidate, who runs with the 14-party National Concertation coalition.
Peña, who was a member of the PLRA for more than two decades, switched to the ANR in 2016 and has now become Horacio Cartes' bet for the Colorados to retain power.
Cartes, a billionaire banking, tobacco and food businessman who presided over Paraguay between 2013 and 2018, is accused of corruption by the United States Department of the Treasury and has exercised counter-power to President Mario Abdo, also from Colorado, for the last five years . In fact, Peña won the candidate supported by Abdo, the former evangelical bishop Arnoldo Wiens, in the party's primaries.
There are three other prominent candidates, although only one of them is likely to surprise, since according to the latest polls he has around 24% of the intention to vote. This is the controversial far-right ex-senator Payo Cubas.
The fourth and fifth places in the polls are occupied, respectively, by former Abdo Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo – who receives the support of a sector of the Grand Front – and by former Real Zaragoza goalkeeper, populist José Luis Chilavert; each with less than 3% in the polls.
