Runoff Election Threatens Democracy, Says Paraguayan Senate President

Basilio "Bachi" Núñez, the President of Paraguay's Senate, has declared that a second round of presidential elections, known as a "balotaje," is fundamentally detrimental to democracy. His remarks came after Senator Dionisio Amarilla challenged the ruling party to reform the constitution to include presidential re-election in exchange for adopting a runoff system.

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is a mechanism exclusively to attack democracy.

Núñez asserted that the opposition's primary goal is to gain power without a coherent political vision. He believes that the runoff election mechanism poses a risk to Paraguayan democracy because it fails to build broad majorities and results in "artificial alliances." The senator accused the opposition of fearing President Horacio Cartes, suggesting their push for a runoff is driven by a desire to avoid direct electoral confrontation with him.

He further characterized the second-round vote as an "opportunistic agreement" and a "distribution of positions." Núñez advocated for Paraguay to retain its current system, where the candidate securing the most votes wins outright, pointing to countries like Colombia, the United States, Panama, England, and South Korea as examples. He dismissed the runoff system as a tactic for those seeking shortcuts to power, associating it with "progressive, globalist, socialist, and left-wing ideologies."

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You are afraid of the former president of the Republic and current president of the party.

Meanwhile, Senator Líder Amarilla warned that the debate surrounding re-election and runoffs is a ploy by the ruling party to initiate a constitutional reform process, intending to blame the opposition. Dionisio Amarilla, however, countered that a second round would lend greater legitimacy to governments, noting that in recent elections, a majority voted against the ruling ANR party.

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That is an invention of sectors that want to find a shortcut to power. The progressives, the globalists, the socialists, the left-wing ideologues who later want to drag them along like a tail wagon, as always are the liberals, to reach power.