Two-horse race hours out from Paraguay election

[Judi Lynn]

AP news clip video at link:

Apr 28, 2023

(28 Apr 2023) Voters will decide Sunday whether to stay with the party that has governed Paraguay for seven decades or back a broad opposition coalition that has mounted a strong challenge amid discontent over health, schools and corruption. (AP video: Emilio Sanabria and Paraguay Presidency)

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Ah, Paraguay!



3 minute read · March 28, 2023 10:18 AM UTC · Last Updated 2 hours ago

In Paraguay, calls for change test Colorado Party's political machine

By Daniela Desantis



Presidential pre-candidate for the Partido Colorado party Santiago Pena accompanied by his wife Leticia Ocampo, speaks to the media before casting his vote during the party's primary election at a poll station in Asuncion, Paraguay, December 18, 2022. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo


ASUNCION, March 28 (Reuters) - Paraguay's ruling Colorado Party - a conservative political machine that has dominated government in Asuncion for some eight decades - could be facing a major challenge at the ballot box next month.

Voters say they want change and are fed up with internal party squabbles and allegations of graft - opening up the door for a broad opposition alliance to win power.

Opinion polls suggest the presidential contest will be a close battle between Colorado party economist Santiago Pena and lawyer Efrain Alegre from the opposition Concertacion Nacional, sitting well ahead of a large but fragmented field of opponents.

More:
https://archive.ph/bOlBa#selection-721.0-721.249

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Colorado Party's most famous President, Alfredo Stroessner, Wikipedia:

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Operation Condor
Paraguay was a leading participant in Operation Condor, a campaign of state terror and security operations officially implemented in 1975 which were jointly conducted by the military dictatorships of six South American countries (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil) with the support of the United States.[23][24][25][26] Human rights violations characteristic of those in other South American countries such as kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings were routine and systematic during the Stroessner regime. Following executions, many of the bodies of those killed by the regime were dumped in the Chaco or the Río Paraguay. The discovery of the "Archives of Terror" in 1992 in the Lambaré suburb of Asunción confirmed allegations of widespread human rights violations.[27]

Pastor Coronel was the chief of the Department of Investigations, or secret police. He would interview people in a pileta, a bath of human vomit and excrement, or ram electric cattle prods up their rectums.[28][29][13] In 1975, the Secretary of the Paraguayan Communist Party, Miguel Ángel Soler [es], was dismembered alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone.[28][30][31][32] The screams of tortured dissidents were often recorded and played over the phone to family members, and sometimes the bloody garments of those killed were sent to their homes.[16]

Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the Aché Indian population of Paraguay's eastern districts, largely as the result of U.S. and European corporations wanting access to the country's forests, mines and grazing lands.[33][9] The Aché Indians resided on land that was coveted and had resisted relocation attempts by the Paraguayan army. The government retaliated with massacres and forced many Aché into slavery. In 1974, the UN accused Paraguay of slavery and genocide. Only a few hundred Aché remained alive by the late 1970s.[9] The Stroessner regime financed this genocide with U.S. aid.[9]

Stroessner was careful not to show off or draw attention from jealous generals or foreign journalists. He avoided rallies and took simple holidays in Patagonia. He became more tolerant of opposition as the years passed, but there was no change in the regime's basic character.

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_

Loved to stand up and wave in his car! Here he is with fellow torture/murder worshiper, and Washington fave, Nixon-fully-supported Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet!



Getting some more fresh air, standing up in the car with Spain's monster tyrant, Francisco Franco