Horacio Cartes

Cartes was the Colorado candidate in the 2013 presidential election.[6][14] The BBC suggested that his convincing points during his campaign were the promises to raise private capital to upgrade the country's infrastructure, to modernise its public enterprises, to attract international investments, and to create jobs. On 21 April 2013, he was elected President of Paraguay with 45.80% of the vote.[6] When he took office on 15 August, it marked only the second time in the country's 202 years of independence that a ruling party peacefully surrendered power to the opposition.

In regards to the impeachment of Fernando Lugo and the negative reception the country was given in the aftermath by Latin American leaders, Cartes defended the legality of the impeachment and said that Paraguay should not withdraw from Mercosur, pointing to economic benefits of the common market and free trade.[16]

He was sworn in on August 15, 2013, using his inaugural address to declare a war on poverty in Paraguay.[15] His inauguration was attended by fellow conservative South American, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera, as well as Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Peru's Ollanta Humala,[17] Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, Uruguay's José Mujica and Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou.[18]

Cartes announced his cabinet in August 2013 upon being sworn in.[18] Cartes' picks were largely technocratic.[19]

In 2015, massive student protests occurred in Paraguay. The demand of students was a better quality of education, demanding an increase in the education budget to reach 7% of the national GDP as requested by UNESCO; at the time education spending represented 3.9% of GDP and was one of the lowest in the region.

On May 21, 2018, the Paraguayan embassy moved to Jerusalem, becoming the third country in the world to recognize the city as the diplomatic capital of Israel.[34] However, Cartes's successor Mario Abdo Benítez reversed the decision on September 5, 2018.[35]

The current constitution limits the president to a single five-year term. In later 2016 and early 2017, Cartes and his supporters in Congress attempted to pass a constitutional amendment to run for re-election, a move described by the opposition as "a coup". On 31 March 2017, a series of protests erupted after supporters of the amendment in the Senate voted for the amendment during a secret session in a closed office rather than on the Senate floor, during which demonstrators set fire to the Congress building. Several people were reported injured, including one protester who was killed after being hit by a shotgun blast by police, and one lower-house deputy who had to undergo surgery after being injured by rubber bullets.[36][37][38][39] On 17 April, Cartes announced that he would not run for a second presidential term even if the amendment passed. On 26 April, the Chamber of Deputies rejected the proposed constitutional amendment for presidential re-election.[40] In a June 2019 interview with Financial Times, when asked about the amendment, Cartes said, "If you ask me today if it was a mistake, yes it was because it created an unnecessary climate."[41][42][43]

In the 2018 Paraguayan general election, Cartes, while still President, ran for a full Senate seat, which was perceived as an attempt of extending his political influence past his presidency, and was elected.[44] New Senators would be sworn in on 30 June 2018, six weeks before Cartes's presidential term was scheduled to end, thus the need for Cartes to leave office before the expiration of his term, as the constitution states officials can not hold two offices concurrently. Consequently, on 28 May 2018, Cartes offered his resignation as President, which would have to be agreed to by Congress. Legislators were opposed to Cartes resigning and taking up the seat, stating it was unconstitutional. The opposition, as well as dissidents within Cartes' own Colorado Party, successfully blocked Cartes's resignation,[44] boycotting the vote, hence preventing a quorum from being present for a vote on the resignation.[45] Cartes withdrew his bid to resign and be sworn in as a senator on 26 June 2018 after not receiving enough political support to carry through his plans.[46]