The elections in Paraguay to elect president, governors and parliamentarians take place this Sunday (30). In the morning, Paraguayans faced queues at polling stations and the opposition pointed out that in a place in Yby Pytá, armed groups linked to drug trafficking and the ruling party were preventing the exercise of the right to vote.
Voting in Paraguay is mandatory, but sanctions in case of abstention are light and in most cases are never implemented, so that, in practice, attendance at polling places has a high degree of voluntariness. Both the ruling party and the opposition were accused of inducing the vote at several polling stations. Coloradism even speaks of “attempts at violence in some places in the center of the country”.
The main unknown, according to recent polls, is whether or not Santiago Peña, candidate of the ruling Colorado Party, will defeat oppositionist Efraín Alegre, leader of Concertación, a conglomerate of center-left parties. The latest polls show a technical tie between the two candidates.
Paraguayans residing abroad also vote at polling stations located in Argentina, Brazil, the United States and Spain.
The candidate of the ruling Colorado Party for the Presidency of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, assured, before the opening of the general elections, that “every Paraguayan vote counts”.
“Today we define a country model, we choose whether we want a Paraguay that invests more in its human capital or we will lose again the enormous opportunity to grow promoting the economic and social well-being of our people”, said the former president, economist, of the of the Colorado Party in Asunción.
In a message read to the press, followers and the head of Coloradismo, former president Horacio Cartes (2013-2018), he assured that on this day “a Paraguay that plans its future to take the big leap we need or a country that navigates through improvisation ”.
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