A powerful businessman accused of drug trafficking and cigarette smuggling was elected Paraguay’s new president on Sunday in a vote marred by violence.
Horacio Cartes (56) was declared winner after taking almost 46 per cent of the poll, beating the ruling Liberal Party candidate by 10 points. The victory marks the return to power of the populist Colorado Party, which ruled the poor landlocked country for six decades before being defeated by former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo in 2008 elections.
Problems ahead
"Poverty, the lack of jobs for young people and international issues await us," said Cartes in a brief speech to jubilant supporters in Asunción after the results were announced. The Colorados also won control of the lower house of congress but failed to win a majority in the senate.
Lugo, impeached last June, was due to win a seat in the senate and see his left-wing alliance become the country's third force after the Colorados and the Liberals, the two parties that have dominated in Paraguay for over a century.
Sunday’s vote was marred by violence that left one person dead and accusations of irregularities at various polling stations. The campaign was dogged by evidence of corruption by Colorados and Liberals.
Cartes’s victory presents a diplomatic headache for governments in the region. US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks revealed that the US Drug Enforcement Administration had identified Cartes as the head of an organisation that laundered drug money. In 2000 a Brazilian-registered aircraft containing cocaine and marijuana was seized on one of the new president’s ranches.
Cartes owns Paraguay’s Amambay bank, which has faced multiple accusations of money laundering. In 1989 he spent almost a year in detention on money-laundering charges but these were later dropped.
He was also identified by a 2004 investigation conducted by Brazil’s congress of being a ringleader in the smuggling of contraband cigarettes. He has denied the accusations.
Rise to power
The businessman, with interests stretching from banking to food to football, was already one of Paraguay's richest men before running for president. Though he had previously said he had no interest in politics and had never voted in a presidential election, Cartes convinced the Colorado Party to rewrite its rules to allow him to become its presidential candidate despite only joining the party in 2009.
His rise to power was backed by the Colorado senator Juan Carlos Galaverna, long one of the most influential politicians in Paraguay and said by foreign police and intelligence services to be a key facilitator for the drug trafficking networks operating in the country, which is a major hub for the shipment of Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine to Brazil, Argentina and Europe.
Uruguayan president José Mujica congratulated Cartes on his victory and invited him to June’s Mercosur summit in Montevideo. Paraguay has been suspended from the regional trade bloc since the impeachment of Lugo.
