The current candidate, Santiago Peña, was the winner of the presidential election in Paraguay, held this Sunday (30), and will govern the country until 2028. He will be the successor of party colleague Mario Abdo Benítez.
With 91.54% of the polls counted, Peña has 43.11% of the votes, against 27.49% of oppositionist Efraín Alegre, from the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, who placed second in the dispute. In Paraguay, there is no second round – the person with the most votes is elected, even if they do not reach more than 50% of the electorate’s preference.
Thus, the Colorado Party, which since 1948 has only failed to occupy the Paraguayan presidency during the governments of Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) and Federico Franco (2012-2013), will remain in power for another five years.
On Twitter, Mario Abdo Benítez congratulated his successor. “Congratulations to the Paraguayan people for the great participation in this electoral day and to the president-elect Santiago Peña. We will work to initiate an orderly and transparent transition that will strengthen our institutions and the country’s democracy,” wrote the current Paraguayan president.
Peña, a 44-year-old economist, was a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Paraguay and was Minister of Finance between 2015 and 2017, in the government of Horacio Cartes, political godfather of the young candidate.
Among the proposals of the new Paraguayan president are attracting investment and offering incentives to small and medium-sized companies to create 500,000 jobs in five years; increase by 25% the budget allocation for the Tekoporã mbarete program (aimed at families in socially vulnerable situations); tripling the amount of the National Police’s ostensible patrol division in the country’s largest cities; and facilitate access to home ownership for families with less conditions.
In foreign affairs, Peña promised that one of his first actions if elected will be to transfer the Paraguayan embassy in Israel to Jerusalem (as the Paraguayan government did in 2018, but backtracked a few months later).
“Our country recognizes this city as the capital of the State of Israel,” said Peña, in a debate organized by the Paraguayan-Israeli Chamber of Commerce (Cacopi) in March.
During the campaign, Peña suffered the erosion of his association with Cartes, the target of US sanctions due to accusations of cigarette smuggling, money laundering and financing groups considered terrorists by the White House, such as Hezbollah. Even so, the economist emerged victorious from the polls.
“The connection with Horacio Cartes is undeniable. Politically, we have been working together, I was finance minister in his government, but the responsibilities are personal,” said Peña in an interview with the Associated Press.
“We all ask him to defend himself because we are convinced that these accusations are groundless,” he added.
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