Colorado Party wins municipal election in Asunción, Paraguay

Credit: NORBERTO DUARTE / AFP via Getty Images

(CNN Spanish) -

After a year of postponement due to the covid-19 pandemic, Paraguay finally held its municipal elections this Sunday in the 261 districts of the national territory.

The ruling Colorado Party managed to maintain the intendancy of Asunción, with the reelection of Óscar Rodríguez.

According to data provided this Sunday by the Superior Court of Electoral Justice, Rodríguez, nicknamed "Nenecho", won the capital city administration with 47.5% of the votes.

When the official results were known, the elected mayor of the capital thanked the voters on his Twitter account.

"You saw that it was possible!

Thank you very much, ”he wrote.

In second place in the electoral bid in Asunción was Eduardo Nakayama, candidate of the Together for Asunción alliance, led by the Liberal Party, the main opposition party, with 42.11% of the votes.

Nakayama recognized Rodríguez's victory, and highlighted having exceeded "more than 100,000 votes shouting in favor of change."

"That is something we have to celebrate," he said at a press conference after the results were known.

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Nakayama had denounced the Colorado candidate this week for alleged misappropriation of funds allocated by the Municipality to combat the pandemic.

After the complaints, the Comptroller General of the Republic sent a request for information this Friday to the acting mayor of the capital's commune, César Ojeda, requesting data on purchases of supplies during the pandemic, carried out under the management of Óscar Rodríguez.

This Sunday, after casting his vote, Rodríguez disqualified the complaints and asked "that the competent bodies rule on the matter", maintaining that his administration is "in order." He added that he is at peace and enjoys tranquility, and asked that stop "begetting hate".

According to official figures, there was a participation of 59.65% of the eligible voters in Asunción.

By provision of a new law sanctioned in 2019, in these elections Paraguay used voting machines that had to be electronic and issue a printed version of the vote cast by the voter.

The new law also incorporated closed and unblocked lists for multi-person positions, in this case of the Municipal Boards.

For the municipal elections this Sunday, held throughout the country, 15,139 machines installed in the 1,135 premises were used, with 11,913 voting tables, according to the Electoral Justice.

Several groups of international observers accompanied the process, including the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (Uniore) and the Organization of American States (OAS).

The head of the OAS Mission, Juan Pablo Corlazzoli, affirmed that Paraguay "establishes a new benchmark in the electoral field," with innovations in matters such as electronic voting, political financing, and health protocol.

The bloodiest elections in Paraguay, according to several experts

The Paraguayan Prosecutor's Office investigates the murder of candidates for municipal councilors during the electoral campaign.

As reported by the Police, on April 9, Marcos Roberto Lopes, a candidate for councilor of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (PDP), died in his workshop at the hands of hitmen.

In the town of Nueva Esperanza, on September 21, Carlos Aguilera, candidate for councilor for Itakyry, of the ruling Colorado Party, died of two shots.

In Pedro Juan Caballero, the candidate for councilor Nestor Echeverría died after receiving 43 gunshot wounds to the body, according to the Prosecutor's Office.

On October 1, the police also reported the death of Bartolomé Morel, candidate for councilor of Nueva Germania for the PDP.

A government source told CNN on Monday that “there have never been such issues of killing and attacking oneself in cases in a row.

Rather, they were isolated events, in other previous elections.

Although it is true that there was a lot of violence, not everything would seem to be the product of hitmen or drug trafficking, rather it is the regional Creole politics, due to the prevailing fanaticism ”.

Paraguay