Santiago Peña of Paraguay’s incumbent conservative Colorado Party won the presidency of the South American nation in Sunday’s general elections with 42.74 percent of the votes, defeating leftist opposition candidate Efraín Alegre by a roughly 15-point margin.
The long-ruling Colorado Party also obtained a majority in both houses of the Paraguayan Congress and won in 15 out of the nation’s 17 state governor races.
Peña, a 44-year-old economist and the nation’s former minister of finance between 2015 and 2017, will begin his five-year presidential term on August 15, succeeding current President Mario Abdo Benítez. Peña’s victory ensures the continuity of Paraguay’s over six-decade relationship with Taiwan, as leftist opposition candidate Alegre had expressed his intent to end them in favor of China.
“Today we are not celebrating a personal triumph, but the victory of a people who chose the path of social peace,” Peña said during his victory speech on Sunday evening.
The nation’s top electoral court, the Superior Court of Electoral Justice, reported a 63.24-percent turnout.
Paraguay’s 2023 presidential race saw 13 candidates running for the nation’s presidential seat. The race was overwhelmingly led by three candidates: Peña and the Colorado Party, who obtained 42.74 percent of the votes; leftist opposition candidate Efraín Alegre of the Pact for a New Paraguay coalition, who obtained 27.48 percent; and populist anti-establishment outsider Paraguayo Cubas, who obtained 22.92 percent of the votes.
Paraguay’s electoral system does not require that a candidate obtain more than 50 percent of the votes, nor does it establish the need for runoff elections.
The opposition Pact for a New Paraguay coalition was established as an attempt to bring an end to the long rule of the conservative Colorado Party during the 2023 general election. The Colorado Party has maintained power for roughly seven decades, their rule only being briefly interrupted during the victory of leftist President Fernando Lugo in 2008. Lugo was impeached and removed from office in 2012 by the Paraguayan Senate, which accused him of “poor performance” in a forced land eviction incident that year in which seven police officers and at least nine farmers were killed.
The continuity of Paraguay’s six-decade-long relationship with Taiwan was put on the line during the 2023 presidential race, as opposition candidate Alegre questioned the “benefits” of maintaining such relations over establishing ties with China instead.
Paraguay is one of the 13 nations in the world that maintains full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, having established them in 1957. The South American nation is one of the only three in Latin America alongside Belize and Guatemala that maintain relations with Taiwan after Honduras’s leftist government decided to cut ties with Taiwan in favor of China in March.
One week before the election, opposition candidate Efraín Alegre had stated that Taiwan needed to “compensate” Paraguay for maintaining relations with them, as the Paraguay-Taiwan ties prevented Paraguay’s farm-driven economy from being able to directly sell its soy and beef exports to China.
“We don’t see that Taiwan is doing the same for Paraguay,” Alegre said during a campaign press conference. “Taiwan needs to recognize and compensate Paraguay for what it’s losing from this relationship. It’s only fair.”
In contrast, Peña had stated in January that he would maintain Paraguay’s ties with Taiwan.
“We have to learn a lot from Taiwan as a small country, next to a very large country like China for them and Brazil for us, in the same way that we have to foster a relationship with Israel, from which we can also learn,” Peña said during an interview. “Israel is in a very hostile and complicated environment, however, it is a world power.”
The now President-elect had pointed out that his country must “look at its alignment” so as to maintain a diplomatic link with those nations that are of great relevance to their development, including the United States and Israel.
“It is a great ally of Paraguay [The United States], I see that geopolitical triangle of Washington, Jerusalem and Taipei as something very important for Paraguay,” he continued.
The ruling Colorado Party also saw sweeping victories in the Paraguayan Congress during Sunday’s elections, obtaining majorities in both chambers of the nation’s parliament. The Colorado Party obtained 23 out of the nation’s 45 senate seats, up from the 17 it currently holds, and 47 out of the 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, up from 42.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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