Paraguay’s Cartes Tightens Grip on Ruling Party in Primary Elections

Ken Parks
·3 min read
1
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

(Bloomberg) -- Paraguay’s ex-President Horacio Cartes, who is blacklisted by the US for alleged corruption, tightened his grip on the ruling party in primary elections that delivered a decisive victory to his handpicked presidential candidate.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Almost a quarter of Paraguay’s 4.8 million registered voters showed up for the Sunday primaries to choose Colorado Party candidates for congress, provinces and president who will compete in general elections on April 30. The opposition Concertacion coalition primaries received almost 590,000 votes.

Cartes, whose business empire includes a major cigarette company, was elected chairman of the Colorado Party and pledged to unify it after an acrimonious primary campaign. His presidential protégé and former finance minister, Santiago Pena, also signaled he would embrace his rivals in the party.

“All of the Colorados who want to work for the good of the country will be received with open arms,” Pena said in televised remarks at a boisterous rally of Cartes’s supporters.

Read More: US Says Paraguay Vice President Corrupt, Upending Local Politics

Incumbent President Mario Abdo Benitez’s candidate and ex-Public Works Minister Arnoldo Wiens pledged to back Pena after preliminary results gave him 44% of the vote. Vice President Hugo Velazquez, a veteran political operator who ended his presidential campaign after the US added him to a corruption blacklist, also threw his support behind Pena.

A unified Colorado Party would prove a formidable opponent to the Concertacion’s primary winner and three-time presidential hopeful Efrain Alegre.

The Colorado Party has governed the landlocked nation almost continuously since the end of the Stroessner dictatorship in 1989 with the exception of the 2008 elections when it lost to an alliance of conservatives and leftists led by former priest Fernando Lugo. He was impeached in 2012 when a key ally, the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, joined Colorado Party lawmakers to remove him from office.

Now key opposition leaders including Alegre of the conservative Authentic Radical Liberal Party and Lugo have cobbled together another coalition to unseat the Colorado Party in April.

The ruling party wields a powerful political machine that uses clientilism and party identity to mobilize its voters who represent about 40% of the electorate, said Marcello Lachi, a political scientist at the National University of Pilar.

“The Colorado Party will probably win the presidential campaign unless there is a conflict within the party that convinces a lot of people to stay home” and not vote, Lachi said.

Slow Recovery

Voters in the country about the size of California will head to the polls in less than five months amid the backdrop of an accelerating economy still scarred by Covid-19.

The central bank expects a good soy harvest will boost growth from almost zero this year to 4.5% in 2023. However, the economy is still a long way from recovering the 75,000 small businesses and 200,000 salaried jobs lost during the pandemic, according to brokerage Puente.

Crime and corruption are set to play a major role in the election following the brazen assassinations of a city mayor and public prosecutor as well as US measures against Cartes and Velazquez.

Seeking to tap voter angst on both issues, Alegre called on Colorados disenchanted with their party leadership’s alleged ties to organized crime to vote for the Concertacion.

“I say to them with humility: come to the Concertacion,” Alegre said late Sunday. “This is the unity of decent people with Colorados, with all citizens, who dream of and want a more just country.”

(Updates with background in 11th, opposition comments in 14th, 15th paragraphs)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.