Horacio Cartes elected new president of Paraguay

Horacio Cartes, leader of the Colorado Party (which ruled Paraguay for Six decades until 2008 and was tainted by corruption ) continues to be elected as the President from the Paraguay after the elections for country's legislature, 17 governors, local authorities and people in Congress. He won a five-year term with 46 percent from the vote over 37 percent for Efrain Alegre from the ruling Liberal party. The president-elect Cartes is among the richest person in Paraguay and is well-known as president of Libertad, the club that won last year's national football championship as well as owns controlling shares in banks, investment funds, agricultural estates, a soda maker and tobacco plantations.

EVENTS :

• The post remained was left vacant by President Fernando Lugo's impeachment this past year. Congress removed Lugo, a leftist and former Roman Catholic bishop, after finding him responsible for mishandling a botched land eviction by which 17 police officers and peasant farmers died.
• Alegre's Liberal Party took over the presidency after withdrawing support for Lugo and clearing the way in which for his impeachment in June.
• A number of Paraguay's neighbours compared the two-day trial to some coup and imposed diplomatic sanctions around the South American nation.
• Lugo's administration seemed to be rocked by a sex scandal, after he admitted to using fathered two children out of wedlock as they was still a priest, and that he faces at least two other as-yet unresolved paternity suits.

Paraguay's serving president, Federico Franco, is barred through the constitution from running for re-election despite the fact that he is just serving out what remained of Lugo's five-year term. He'll hand over the presidency in August. The leftist coalition that swept Lugo to power has since split, even though the former president was again around the ballot, this time as a Senate candidate.

• Mercosur trade group ( members -Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela) had suspended Paraguay after Lugo's impeachment and introduced socialist Venezuela, even though its inclusion never was approved by the Paraguayan Congress.
• The UN estimates which more than half of Paraguayans live in poverty. Paraguay's census bureau puts the amount at 39 percent inside a country which is South America's third-biggest producer of soy, corn and sunflowers.