Santiago Pena has been elected as the new President of Paraguay, after winning 42.93% of the votes in Sunday’s elections. Pena, who was the candidate for the Colorado Party, defeated opposition candidate Efrain Alegre, who received 27.52% of the votes. Independent and anti-system candidate Paraguayo Cubas came third with 22.73% of the vote. With almost 4.8 million citizens called to vote for senators, deputies, governors, and city councillors, the Colorado Party secured a majority of 43.75% in the upper house of Congress. The same party also won in the election of governors, winning 15 of the 17 departments in contention.
Pena, a former finance minister, thanked the people for trusting in his “conciliatory and patriotic” project, as well as the politicians who accompanied him, with special mention to campaign chief and former President Horacio Cartes (who is currently under investigation for corruption). Pena emphasized the three pillars of his upcoming mandate: social peace, dialogue, and reconciliation with the authorities, while acknowledging the significant challenges in terms of the country’s economy and security.
Alegre, a former Minister of Public Works during the only progressive government in recent Paraguayan history, led a coalition that called for change, promising reforms to bring issues such as health, education, and the internet closer to wider sections of society.
Outgoing President Mario Abdo congratulated “the Paraguayan people for their great participation.” Meanwhile, the President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle, congratulated Pena and expressed his commitment to working with Paraguay to complement the two economies. Argentine President Alberto Fernandez congratulated the President-elect by phone and wished the “sister people” a great future. “Latin America must unite, integration is the way forward,” Fernandez said. Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also congratulated Pena and wished him good luck for his mandate. “We will work together towards better and stronger relations between our countries and for a South America with more unity, development, and prosperity,” he proposed.