Friday, April 19, 2013

Paraguay presidential race sinks to new low amid corruption scandal

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Fraud allegations circling frontrunners Horacio Cartes and Efrain Alegre do little to improve Paraguay's tarnished reputation

Even by the historically dire standards of corruption in Latin America, the two frontrunners in this weekend's presidential election in Paraguay may well represent a new low.

In the far right is the favourite, Horacio Cartes, a homophobe who has been jailed after accusations of currency fraud, investigated for alleged tax evasion and widely accused of drug trafficking.

His main challenger, Efrain Alegre, meanwhile, is fighting off claims that his centre-right Liberal party used millions of dollars in public funds to buy an electoral alliance that gives him an outside chance of an upset.

Unless there is a shock win for one of the other candidates – all of whom are far behind – this political mud looks likely to stick on a government that is something of a pariah in Latin America due to its long history of counterfeiting and smuggling and the ousting last year of Fernando Lugo, its first leftwing president in six decades.

An average of the most recent polls gave a six-point lead to Cartes, a 57-year-old tobacco grower standing as candidate for the Colorado party.

His popularity appears to have been barely dented by a recent homophobic outburst – he said he would rather shoot himself in the testicles than accept a son who wanted to marry another man – and revelations about his shady history, including photographs of him in handcuffs in 1980 when he was charged with currency fraud, a drug bust of a plane on his property, and allegations in Argentina and Brazil that he is a major source of illegal cigarettes in their countries.

"Narco-politics will reign" if Cartes wins, warns his ruling party opponent, Alegre, who calls his rival "the maximum expression of the smuggling, mafia and pirating model" of development.

Alegre's efforts to claim the moral high ground have been undermined by reports that the government brought $11.5m of land from the father of another political leader, Jorge Oviedo, days before entering an electoral pact. Rather than face impeachment, Oviedo has resigned his post as president of Congress.

This has been campaign gold for Cartes. "You can't keep handling public money as if it were private," he taunted his rival "We are going to put an end to that custom of robbery. It is what has destroyed Paraguay."

Voters may be disillusioned, but many say they will cast their ballots according to old loyalties. "There's nobody clean in Paraguay," said Hugo Díaz, 77, a former farm administrator who plans to vote for Alegre, but only because of family allegiances.

Supporters of the Colorado party – the traditional party of landowners, the elite and those in their patronage – said they expected to see better business prospects. The economy, which is dependent on soy exports and the manufacture of fake goods, slumped into minus territory last year but is forecast to achieve double-digit growth in 2013.

"Cartes was a successful businessman," said Carlos Acosta, 52, a concierge who was listening to a campaign speech on the radio. "There will be economic progress with him."

Acosta is one of nearly two million Colorado members, a support base that is the result of "patronage and clientelism", said Peter Lambert, a specialist in Paraguay at the University of Bath. "Access to opportunity in Paraguay still comes from allegiance to the Colorado party," he said.

Despite the strong whiff of corruption, the chances of smaller party candidates such as Mario Ferreiro to make a breakthrough appear slim.

José Morínigo, a pollster and former Lugo government official, gave Alegre a 1.9 percentage-point lead over Cartes. "Money rules here," he said. "It's more than likely the Liberal and Colorado parties will buy votes. I see a limited possibility for a true participatory democracy."


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Warren Murray, Matthew Weaver, Paul Owen 19 Apr, 2013


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/19/paraguay-presidential-race-corruption-scandal
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