He had created the surprise on Sunday April 30 by coming third in the presidential election in Paraguay. The ex-candidate Paraguayo Cubas was arrested on Friday May 5 for “disturbing public order”, police said, after denouncing alleged irregularities in the ballot. His accusations were rejected by the electoral tribunal as well as by international observers.
Mr. Cubas, whose supporters had demonstrated at least twice outside the electoral court of Asuncion since the elections, was arrested without resistance in San Lorenzo, in the large suburbs of the capital. He has been remanded in custody, Paraguayan police chief Gilberto Fleitas said.
Paraguayo Cubas won 22% of the vote on Sunday. Self-proclaimed “anti-system”, this 61-year-old former deputy carried out a virulent anti-parliamentary and anti-civil servant discourse during the campaign.
A 44-year-old economist, Santiago Peña, candidate for the Colorado Party (conservative) in power for seven decades in Paraguay, won the election by a wide margin, with 42% of the vote, against 27% for his main centre-left rival Efrain Alegre.
Since Sunday, Mr. Cubas, and his party Cruzada Nacional have constantly stigmatized “the mafia, the drug traffickers who won while Paraguay lost”. The former candidate denounced irregularities or inconsistencies in the vote count.
In the aftermath of the election, Monday evening and the following night, several demonstrations and roadblocks were erected in various parts of the country by supporters of Mr. Cubas. More than a hundred people were arrested throughout the week for disturbing public order or refusing to comply. In Asuncion, brief clashes took place with the police on Monday evening. The ex-candidate had since encouraged the protesters to continue.
Deputy in the 1990s, then senator in 2018, Paraguayo Cubas had been expelled from the Senate the following year for bad behavior, in particular insulting an elected official and beating the police. The Senate had voted to withdraw his nomination.
“Transparent and professional” elections
Friday afternoon, he was apprehended without resistance, and even published on his Facebook account his journey in the police car, where he was chatting quietly with the police. “They take me arrested and handcuffed like a delinquent, while the real ones are free and continue to rule the country,” he posted a little later.
Police Commissioner Carlos Benitez assured ABC-TV that Mr. Cubas was “very calm, very cooperative”, causing no “inconvenience”. He also referred to a rally of “about 300 supporters” of the politician towards the police division where he is being held. A large police cordon bars all access.
Following accusations of fraud or irregularities emanating from the Cubas camp, the electoral tribunal, which in recent days validated the results, assured that “there is no possibility of fraud, the results are the expression of the citizens, like it or not.”
The observer mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) for its part affirmed that “there is no reason to doubt the results presented by the Electoral Authority”, and that the results communicated ” coincide with the information collected by our observers”.
The European Union observation mission also considered that the elections had been “well organised, transparent and professional”, Deputy Head of Mission Tania Marques told Agence France-Presse. Although there have been “complaints and denunciations”, and the mission “continues to observe the process”.
