The main mayors of Paraguay were re-elected after a violent campaign | The results were known quickly thanks to the launch of the electronic voting system

The mayors of the main cities of Paraguay have been re-elected this Sunday during municipal elections preceded by a unusual wave of violence against local candidates and supporters. More than 4.6 million citizens were able to elect the mayors and councilors of 261 cities. Average attendance of 60 percent, and the results were known a few hours after the tables were closed due to the implementation of the electronic voting system.

The results of the elections are seen as the beginning of the strategies of political parties to forge lists and alliances with a view to 2023, the date of the presidential and legislative elections. The ruling Colorado party retained the quartermaster Asuncion with the victory of Oscar “Nenecho” Rodriguez, who was fighting for his re-election, but he lost in Ciudad del Este, the second largest city in the country, where he presented Ulises Quintana, a candidate who was prisoner for drug trafficking.

The results in the main cities

Colorado Rodríguez won in the Paraguayan capital with 47.50 percent of the vote, according to the website of the Transmission of Preliminary Election Results (TREP) of the Superior Court of Electoral Justice (TSJE). Behind Rodríguez were Eduardo Nakayama, from an alliance led by the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA, the main opposition party), with 42.11%, and Johanna Ortega, from Asunción Somos Todos, with 4.68% .

Ortega had forced a court decision that forced Asunción authorities to show how one millionaire’s sum was used to assist with pandemic. There have been purchases at exorbitant prices, acquisitions from companies close to civil servants and highly contested maneuvers, which have been widely publicized by the press.

In Ciudad del Este, border with Brazil and commercial epicenter of the country, independent candidate Miguel Prieto retained the post after collecting 61.85% of the vote. Colorado Ulises Quintana came in second, with 27.15 percent. Prieto took over the mayor’s office in 2019 in a snap election that was called after the dismissal of Colorado Party Mayor Sandra McLeod, who was investigated for several corruption cases. At a time Quintana was accused of drug trafficking and was held in a military prison.

While Roque Godoy, of the PLRA, was ratified as President Franco with 51.05 percent of the vote. They were also re-elected Alcides Riveros, of the PLRA, in Fernando de la Mora, with 60.52% of the vote; José Carlos Acevedo, also from the PLRA, to Pedro Juan Caballero, with 55.03%, and Luis Yd, from an alliance of local parties in Encarnación, with 56.69% of the vote.

The day “unfolded amid reports of electoral crimes such as vote buying and propaganda at polling stations,” according to the newspaper. ABC color, who reported three prisoners in different cities for trying to vote with someone else’s ID. The elections contained a novelty: the start of the voting machine system. 15,139 were installed in the 1,135 polling stations, where 11,913 tables were installed, according to data from the TSJE.

President Mario Abdo Benítez He was the first citizen to vote, a few minutes before seven o’clock, the official polling station opening time, in a school in Asunción. The head of state withdrew from the site almost without making a statement to the press, limiting himself to urging citizens to “come out and vote”. Later and with careful consideration, he assured: “From tomorrow We will work with all elected mayors, always thinking of the progress of our Paraguay“.

Escalation of violence

A problem of great concern to the authorities was the unusual level of violence that occurred during the campaign, which recorded several deaths and attacks on local partisans and caravans. In the commune of Itakyry, on September 22, the candidate for the post of city councilor Carlos Aguilera was assassinated, in a confrontation between factions of different strengths.

On the night of September 30, two other budding advisers were killed by gunfire from armed men. arrived on motorbike, shot and fled: Néstor Echeverría to Pedro Juan Caballero and Bartolomé Morel Gauto to Nueva Germania. Last Wednesday, unknown people shot at a truck in which Emiliano Nelson Cano Ozuna, candidate for mayor of the city of Hernandarias, was in., with his son.

Governor of Amambay’s daughter Haylee Carolina Acevedo, 21, was killed in a hit on hitman on Saturday also occurred in Pedro Juan Caballero and in which four people died. The chain of killings prompted Interior Minister Arnaldo Giuzzio to meet with TSJE members to agree on enhanced security operations in towns shaken by the wave of violence.

Efrain Alegre, leader of the PLRA, this weekend read a statement in which, in addition to quoting the president of the country, Mario Abdo Benítez, and his predecessor, Horacio Cartes, both of the Colorado party, he called for the impeachment of the minister of the Interior. “The unstoppable and unbridled wave of murder and violence is the absolute responsibility of the Colorado Party government”, points to the text.