Paraguay's new president Santiago Pena (AFP)
ASUNCION, Paraguay – Paraguayans on Sunday elected a president from the rightwing party in power for nearly eight decades, rejecting a center-left challenger who had railed against endemic institutional corruption.
Economist and former finance minister Santiago Pena, 44, took the election with more than 42 percent of the vote to continue the hegemony of the conservative Colorado Party, results showed.
Sixty-year-old challenger Efrain Alegre of the Concertacion center-left coalition garnered nearly 27.5 percent despite having gone into the vote with a narrow lead in opinion polls.
The outcome bucked a recent anti-incumbency trend in Latin American elections with voters repeatedly punishing establishment parties, often in favor of leftist rivals.
The Colorado Party has governed almost continually since 1947 -- through a long and brutal dictatorship and since the return of democracy in 1989, but has been tainted by corruption claims.
Pena's political mentor, ex-president and Colorado Party leader Horacio Cartes, was recently sanctioned by the United States over graft.
Pena thanked Cartes in his first public address as president-elect for his "stubborn dedication to the party," to loud cheers from supporters at party headquarters.
Conceding defeat, Alegre stated: "The effort was not enough."
Some 4.8 million of Paraguay's 7.5 million inhabitants were eligible to vote Sunday for a replacement for President Mario Abdo Benitez, leaving office after a constitutionally limited single five-year term.
They also voted for new lawmakers in a country where voting is mandatory, but only 63 percent turned out.
Key issues for voters were endemic corruption, a spiraling crime problem and poverty.
Like challenger Alegre, Pena is socially conservative, holding strong anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage stances in an overwhelmingly Catholic nation.
On international policy, he had vowed to retain diplomatic ties with Taiwan -- Paraguay is one of only 13 countries to recognize Taipei over Beijing -- unlike Alegre who had mooted a shift to China.
But Pena has promised to move Paraguay's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Experts say landlocked Paraguay -- nestled between Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina -- has become an important launchpad for drugs headed for Europe.