Paraguay’s Taiwan ties safe as ruling party retains presidency

Paraguay’s ruling party candidate, Santiago Peña, 44, has scored a big win in the presidential election, tightening the conservative Colorado party’s political grip and defusing fears that diplomatic ties with Taiwan might have been cut.

Peña, who has pledged to maintain Paraguay’s longstanding Taiwan relations, had 42.7% of the vote with more than 99% of ballots counted – a more than 15-point lead over centre-left rival Efraín Alegre, who has argued for switching allegiance to China.

“Thank you for this Colorado victory, thank you for this Paraguayan victory,” Peña said in a speech. Alegre acknowledged the result. The outgoing president, Mario Abdo, congratulated Peña as “president-elect”, as did the leaders of Brazil and Argentina.

Colorado and rightwing party candidates also performed strongly in congressional elections and governor races, with some provinces recording a historic Colorado majority over opposition rivals.

The election result leaves Peña facing a challenge to rev up Paraguay’s farm-driven economy, shrink a major fiscal deficit and navigate rising pressures from soy and beef producers to ditch relations with Taiwan in favour of China and its huge markets.

“We have a lot to do, after the last years of economic stagnation, of fiscal deficit, the task that awaits us is not for a single person or for a party,” Peña said in his victory speech, calling for “unity and consensus”.

It also underscores the dominance of the Colorado party, which has ruled for all but five of the last 75 years and has a fierce campaign machine, despite rising discontent from some voters over the slowing economy and corruption allegations.

“Once a Colorado always a Colorado,” said Eugenio Senturion, 65, as he voted on Sunday at his local polling station in the area of Jara, Asunción.

Dry weather helped voter turnout, analysts said, with queues to cast ballots long after polling stations were formally meant to close at 4pm.

“All day we’ve observed high levels of participation,” said an observer for the Organization of American States (OAS) electoral mission.

Not all voters were happy, however, reflected in a larger-than-expected share for populist Paraguayo Cubas who had almost 23% of the vote in third place, reflecting wider support for anti-establishment candidates around Latin America.

“I’m worried about crime. All the candidates are the same for me,” said 34-year-old mother of three Maria Jose Rodas as a busload of voters arrived at the inner-city polling station. “Nothing will change.”

The buildup to the election was dominated by the economy, corruption allegations and the candidates’ views on Taiwan. Paraguay is one of only 13 countries to maintain formal diplomatic ties with the democratically governed island that China views as its territory.

Alegre had criticised those ties, which have made it hard to sell soy and beef to China, a major global buyer.

With Reuters