Paraguay: President Abdo Benítez announces candidacy to lead ruling party

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Wednesday, June 15, the president of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, announced he would present his candidacy to the internal elections of the Colorado Party next December, in which he would face former governor Horacio Cartes (2013-2018).

Abdo Benítez made his decision known on his Twitter account and defended that the ruling National Republican Association (ANR) or Colorado Party “needs a change in the current leadership.”

“The Colorado Party must return to its roots, doctrine, and historical ideals and be at the service of the entire Paraguayan nation,” he said.

The ruler argued that “for these reasons,” he signed the acceptance of his candidacy for the party’s presidency.

Abdo Benítez heads a current within the ANR called Colorado Añetete.

Local media indicated that article 237 of the Paraguayan Constitution states that the president and vice-president “cannot exercise public or private positions, remunerated or not, while in office”.

“We are going to make a great campaign, always respecting the responsibility I have as president of the Republic,” Abdo Benítez declared to journalists during a visit to the department of Alto Paraná (southeast).

Questioned about a possible “legal” conflict, he argued that “militancy cannot be prohibited”.

In any case, he indicated that if he wins the ruling party’s presidency, he will wait until August to take office, recognizing that as president, he is forbidden “by the Constitution to have two functions”.

The Colorado Party is headed by the head of the Lower House, Pedro Alliana, who is part of the faction led by Cartes.

Alliana aspires to be a Vice-Presidential candidate in a duo with presidential pre-candidate Santiago Peña, who was Minister of Finance between 2015 and 2017.

On June 1, Cartes announced on Twitter, together with Peña and Alliana, that they were the first to register their candidacies for their party’s primaries.

Paraguay’s Superior Tribunal of Electoral Justice (TSJE) called for next December 18 for simultaneous internal elections in which all political parties and movements in the country will choose their candidates for the general elections of April 2023.

With information from EFE