Anti-LGBTQ candidates win Paraguay elections
Paraguay’s presidential and congressional elections took place on April 30. No openly queer candidates ran in the elections, while the presidential hopefuls did not put forth proposals in favor of LGBTQ and intersex Paraguayans.
Anti-LGBTQ leaders, however, during the campaign managed to deepen discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity through hate speech in public debates.
Paraguay is one of the Latin American countries without any public policy or legislation that protects queer rights. Current President Mario Abdo’s Colorado Party will remain in power after President-elect Santiago Peña won the presidential election. “There is not much surprise in how the Colorados operated, nor is it surprising that people’s discontent seeks an outlet in more extreme candidacies,” Gabriel Grommeck of SomosGay, a Paraguayan LGBTQ and intersex rights group, told the Washington Blade after the election results became known.
Grommeck pointed to the “American syndrome of extreme positions based on disinformation, which, when agitated by the media and social networks managed by corporations, are transformed into successful candidacies.” “It is very present here,” said Grommeck.
