Las elecciones en Paraguay.

Results of Paraguay Elections a Step Back for the Country

By Catherine Cheney, on 23 Apr 2013

 

 

El Palacio presidencial

 On Sunday, Colorado Party candidate Horacio Cartes was elected as the new president of Paraguay, beating his challenger, Efrain Alegre of the governing Liberal Party, by nine percentage points.

The Colorado Party also secured a congressional majority and 15 out of 17 governorships.

But while Cartes has promised “a new direction” for Paraguay, an expert who spoke with Trend Lines predicted that the vote would have the opposite impact.

“The result, although widely expected, is a step back,” Peter Lambert, an expert on Paraguayan politics and an associate dean in the faculty of humanities and social sciences at Bath University, told Trend Lines. The Colorado Party, he continued, “is based on clientelism and patronage, especially in the state sector, and strongly associated with the rise in corruption, lack of accountability and weak rule of law associated with its dominance [of Paraguay’s politics] between 1989 and 2008.”

Explaining that the Colorado Party had supported the dictatorship of former Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner throughout his 35 years in power between 1954 and 1989, Lambert said the party’s return to power represents a return to the past.

In the first 15 years of the democratic transition after Stroessner’s overthrow, the party “oversaw a rise in corruption and inequality, economic stagnation and political instability” while introducing “very little in terms of social reform,” he explained.

Because of its access to state assets and the lessons learned from electoral defeat in 2008, when Paraguay elected the left-wing Fernando Lugo as president, the Colorado Party now finds itself “in an exceptionally strong position for the next decade or more,” Lambert said.

Cartes will begin his term in August. Because the new president is closely allied to conservative elites and lacks sympathy for social movements, Lambert explained, social and political reforms are likely to make little progress over the next five years. “Instead the key areas of land, poverty, inequality and corruption will remain unaddressed,” he said.

“There is no doubt that the U.S. is very concerned about the alleged ties between Cartes and drug trafficking, as well as money laundering and contraband,” Lambert continued. “However, [the U.S.] faced a similar situation with the election of Paraguay's first post-dictatorship president, Gen. Andres Rodriguez in 1989, and managed to build a constructive relationship by effectively drawing a line on the past.”

Lambert explained that, despite U.S. concerns about Paraguay’s reputation as a safe haven for drug traffickers, both Paraguay and the U.S. have a stake in maintaining good relations.

Cartes, Lambert continued, is likely to make public statements about clamping down on drug traffickers, but is unlikely to take meaningful steps to curtail their activities.

As for what the election means for Paraguay’s regional relations, which have been strained since last year, when Lugo was ousted after an impeachment some saw as a parliamentary power grab and replaced by then-Vice President Federico Franco, Lambert said he expected Paraguay to be readmitted into the regional trade bloc Mercosur and the South American political bloc Unasur. But he said readmission is not the same as reconciliation.

“Mercosur and Unasur suspended Paraguay until after fair and free elections, so we would expect the suspension to be lifted,” he said. “However, reconciliation is another question.”

“There is no reason why Paraguay should not re-enter Mercosur, but it has lost a lot of credibility, voice and influence due to Lugo's impeachment and now the election of Cartes,” Lambert continued. “Therefore, once readmitted, it will be a long climb for Paraguay to regain lost credibility as a partner.”

Lambert said that Sunday’s elections demonstrated that democratic institutions and procedures are functioning properly after last year’s controversy over Lugo’s removal.

But noting “the dominance of clientelism and patronage, the politicization of the judiciary and public sector, the weakness of rule of law, and the presence of corruption,” he concluded that Paraguay continues to face “serious questions relating to the quality of democracy.”

Fuente: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/print/12894