Voters in Paraguay cast ballots on Sunday to choose a new leader and try to turn the page on a political crisis that saw the impeachment of leftist president Fernando Lugo ten months ago. Polls show the two leading candidates are conservative tobacco baron Horacio Cartes, 56, and the Liberal Party's Efrain Alegre, 50, who traded accusations of corruption and drug trafficking in a highly negative campaign.
The mostly rural country of 6.5 million bordering Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia is seeking a replacement for Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop turned politician who was ousted in June 2012 by the opposition-controlled legislature after a police eviction of farmers left 17 people dead. The leftist coalition that swept Lugo to power in 2008 has split, but Lugo is on the ballot again, this time running for a Senate seat.
During the campaign Alegre, a self-styled crusader against crime and corruption, highlighted Cartes's brief 1985 jail stint for his role in a currency smuggling affair, while Cartes accused Alegre of embezzling $25 million in government funds. A Cartes victory would mean the return to power of the Colorado Party, which ruled the country for 61 years but has been out of power since 2008.
The conservative party was the pillar of support for dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who held power from 1954 to 1989. Cartes, one of the country's wealthiest men, did not join the party until 2009, and says he only voted for the first time the following year.
Paraguay is plagued by corruption, drug-trafficking, smuggling, and pirating of copyrighted materials like music and movies. Since Lugo's impeachment the country has been led by Liberal Party member Federico Franco, who is not running for re-election.
Most Latin American countries saw the impeachment as a legislative coup d'etat, and Paraguay's membership in the Mercosur common trade bloc and the Unasur regional group has been suspended. A video was broadcast on Paraguay's news website ABC Color showed a conservative Colorado Party senator striking an agreement with two Liberal Party members to pay $25 per vote in the central Caaguazu department.
Senator Silvio Ovelar, who was suspended Friday for two months without pay, told a press conference he was trying to expose corruption on the part of his Liberal rivals but that the move had backfired. Paraguay's 3.5 million voters will also choose some lawmakers in the legislature, and 17 governors.
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