Rich political novice the favorite to win Paraguayan presidency

      
Paraguayans go to the polls on Sunday in a presidential election that could return the center-right Colorado Party to power less than a year after the nation's leftist leader was impeached.       

Millionaire businessman Horacio Cartes, 56, is the Colorado Party candidate and front-runner in the race, most polls show. A political novice, he vows to reform his party, which was tainted by corruption during its 60-year reign through 2008.          

His main rival is Efrain Alegre, a 50-year-old lawyer and career politician in the ruling center-right Liberal Party, which took over the presidency after withdrawing support for President Fernando Lugo and clearing the way for his impeachment in June.        

Congress ousted Lugo, a leftist and former Roman Catholic bishop, after finding him guilty of mishandling a botched land eviction that killed 17 police officers and peasant farmers. Some of Paraguay's neighbors saw the two-day trial as tantamount to a coup and imposed diplomatic sanctions on the South American nation.         

"They're all the same to me, the Colorados, the Liberals, Lugo's people. I used to have faith in politicians but I don't anymore. What we need is jobs and they promise that but never deliver," said Evelia Benitez, a 38-year-old street vendor in the capital Asuncion.          

Nearly 40 percent of Paraguay's 6.6 million people are poor. Located in the heart of the continent, the country relies on soybean and beef exports, but is also notorious for contraband trade and illicit financing.          

One of Paraguay's wealthiest men, Cartes made his fortune in the financial and tobacco industries. Rivals have tried to link him to drug running and money laundering, but he has never been convicted of a crime and denies any wrongdoing.           

Brash and outspoken, Cartes won support for his candidacy even though he never voted before joining the Colorado Party in 2009.           

Alegre, a more somber politician, led corruption probes in Congress. But his reputation as an honest administrator has been undermined by an investigation into whether he misappropriated state funds while serving as Lugo's public works minister.          

Paraguay's current president, Federico Franco, was barred from running in the presidential election under the country's constitution.           

"My leadership model is different from the traditional one. My project represents a 'decent Paraguay' versus the 'Paraguay of the mafias,'" Alegre told Reuters in a recent interview.      


REUTERS