The electoral campaign in Paraguay, shaken by an accusation of corruption by the United States

The accusation of corruption by the United States two of the top leaders of the ruling Colorado Party It has struck at the center of the campaign for the presidential elections that on April 30 will face the pro-government candidate Santiago Peña with his opponent Efraín Alegre in Paraguay.

Last year, former president Horacio Cartes, current president of the Colorado conservative party, and the vice president of the nation, Hugo Velázquez were nominated as “significantly corrupt” by the State Department, which banned them from entering the North American country.

In late January, the US Treasury sanctioned four Cartes companies. And now colorados are faced with the difficulty of obtain loans for the last stretch of the campaign.

“Cartes cannot pay salaries, he cannot apply for credits to finance the campaign. Even delegating his signature is not valid, it is against the law. We are without the resources necessary to face D-Day. What we do know is that the credits requested have already been rejected by five banks if you don’t have that money How will we mobilize our people? Where will the resources come from?Gerardo Soria, a Colorado party leader distant from the former president, recently complained to AFP.

With money?

However, Rodolfo Friedmann, second vice president of the party, assured Wednesday that a Paraguayan bank had agreed to grant a loan.

“There will be no problems in financing the campaign. There is money in the account and this gives us great peace of mind,” candidate Peña said a week ago.

A survey by the company AtlasIntel, conducted in early April, showed a technical draw between Peña and Alegrewith a slight advantage for his opponent, a 60-year-old lawyer and leader of the Liberal Party, who is seeking the presidency for the third time.

The survey too he pointed to corruption as the main problem of the countryaccording to 68% of the interviewees.

Faced with negative signals, Peña, a 44-year-old economist who was a minister in the Cartes government (2013-18), bet on the hard vote of party affiliates, about 2.5 million people, mostly officials and their families.

The electoral lists register about 4.8 million voters out of a population of 7.5 million.

the speeches

“The ruling party talks to officials about job losses, imminent persecution if the opposition wins, appealing to fanaticism, tradition. Now even the Colorados raise the nationalist and anti-imperialist flagpatriotic as an electoral element,” political analyst Marcos Cáceres Amarilla told AFP.

“But many Colorados will ponder what kind of government will head the Paraguayan state after April 30,” he said.

The US sanction hits the Colorado Party on both sides: the one directed by Cartes, considered the godfather of the candidate Peña, and that of the current president Mario Abdo Benítez, whose vice-president Velázquez was forced to give up his electoral aspirations.

“Endemic corruption undermines Paraguay’s democratic institutions and highlights the urgent need for the Paraguayan government to act in the best interests of its citizens, without lining the pockets of its political elites,” said Treasury Undersecretary Brian E. Nelson in justification the penalties.

From then on, much of the ruling party’s campaign darts focused on allusions to “imperialist meddling.”

Juan Carlos Galaverna, Colorado’s second-in-command party, described it as “blatant assaultshameless with no moral limits of any kind”.

Yamil Esgaib, leader of the Colorado candidate for senator, has called for the expulsion of the US ambassador, Marc Ostfield, while Senator Martín Arévalo has assured that “the US embassy is engaged in a campaign to pulverize the Colorado party” .

But the legal complaints against these political leaders they do not come to condemnation.

“In a city with eight years of school per capita, the bandit is voted equally. Nobody cares if he is corrupt or not,” described public policy adviser Sebastián Acha.

“People don’t measure when you talk about billions of dollars, because defendants generally go unpunished,” he noted.

Several Members of Parliament have been implicated in drug trafficking deals. Only one of them has been arrested and tried so far: Colorado Representative Juan Carlos Ozorio.

AFP agency