Protests continue in Paraguay: more than 100 arrested

Tension continues in Paraguay due to the allegations of fraud in the last general elections, in which Santiago Peña was elected as the country’s new president.

Peña, the Colorado Party candidate, will succeed Mario Abdo Benítez on August 15 and govern for five years until 2028.

More than 100 people have been arrested due to riots and demonstrations by groups dissatisfied with the election results.

The demonstrations in Paraguay began on Monday night after former candidate Payo Cubas denounced an alleged “fraud” which took away legislative seats from his party in both chambers of Congress.

Former candidates Efraín Alegre and Euclides Acevedo, who finished second and fourth, requested a manual recount and an audit of the electronic voting computer system.

The Superior Tribunal of Electoral Justice has already filed a complaint before the Public Prosecutor’s Office against demonstrators who have staged disturbances and mobilizations.

Carlos Ljubetich, the court spokesman, considered that “there is no possibility of fraud. The results of the elections are the expressions of the citizenry, whether we like it or not”.

The elections were the first to be held with electronic voting machines, a system that premiered on an experimental basis in 2020 during the Council of the Magistrature elections.

With information from El Economista