Weekly Report - 14 March 2024 (WR-24-10)

Paraguayan prosecutors charged former president Mario Abdo Benítez (2018-2023) and eight former officials in his government with various crimes this week designed to discredit his predecessor Horacio Cartes (2013-2018), a business magnate accused of “significant corruption” by the US. Local media speculated that the move against Abdo Benítez constituted the fulfilment of a political vendetta by Cartes against an inveterate political rival, confirming his grip over the attorney general’s office. This appeared to be lent credence by the leaking to the media of alleged text messages between Cartes’ lawyer and one of the prosecutors. President Santiago Peña, a Cartes acolyte representing the dominant Cartista faction of the ruling Asociación Nacional Republicana-Partido Colorado (ANR-PC), who took office last August, is pointedly keeping above the fray.

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