The electoral contribution of the PLRA to the Concertación (II): Efraín’s leadership

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By Mar­cos Pérez Talia

In the first in­stall­ment of these two ar­ti­cles we ex­plored the dif­fer­ent lev­els of par­tic­i­pa­tion in the PLRA in­ter­nal elec­tions, and we showed that there is a pat­tern that ex­plains the me­chan­ics of par­tic­i­pa­tion, which is re­lated to be­ing in the gov­ern­ment or the op­po­si­tion and the type of po­si­tions in dis­pute. In this sec­ond in­stall­ment, we will ex­am­ine the elec­toral path of Efraín Ale­gre in the in­ter­nal dy­nam­ics of the PLRA.

We pro­pose as a main point of analy­sis that the per­cent­age of votes col­lected by Efraín Ale­gre is not the same in all pri­maries but varies de­pend­ing on the type of elec­tion at stake. Fig­ure 1 be­low shows the dif­fer­ent per­cent­ages of votes re­ceived.

Efraín Ale­gre’s re­sults com­pared to his main con­tender (2012 to 2021)

Source: Pre­pared by the au­thors based on data from the PLRA’s TEI.

Ac­cord­ing to Graph 1, Efraín Ale­gre as PLRA can­di­date for pres­i­dent ob­tained 147,360 (36.2%) in 2016 and 158,500 (34.4%) in 2021. While as can­di­date for pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic he ob­tained 379,253 (81.3%) in 2012 and 306,819 (60.9%) in 2017. A very sig­nif­i­cant growth (al­most dou­ble) of his elec­toral flow is ob­served when he runs as a can­di­date for the pres­i­dency of the Re­pub­lic.

Everything suggests that the Efraín Alegre and Soledad Núñez duo will comfortably make it to the Concertación’s presidential candidacy. Alegre had the patience and tenacity to gather the necessary electoral forces (internal and external) to win the presidential candidacy once more.

These data al­low us to as­sume that, for the pres­i­dency of the PLRA, the lib­eral elec­torate has dif­fer­ent op­tions in mind, even if they then vote for Ale­gre. How­ever, for the pres­i­dency of the Re­pub­lic, there seems to be no pos­si­ble de­bate among the Lib­er­als, who over­whelm­ingly choose Efraín Ale­gre. Com­pet­i­tive elec­tions with un­cer­tain re­sults only oc­cur in in­ter­nal party elec­tions, but not in the pri­maries for the pres­i­dency of the Re­pub­lic.

Con­se­quently, the ex­pec­ta­tion of votes for Efraín Ale­gre does not have to be cal­cu­lated based on the in­ter­nal party elec­tions of 2021 and 2016 (in which he tri­umphed with 34% and 36% re­spec­tively) but by ob­serv­ing the elec­tions for na­tional po­si­tions in 2012 and 2017 (in which he tri­umphed with a wide mar­gin, reach­ing at least 60%), which po­si­tioned him as a can­di­date for pres­i­dent of the re­pub­lic.

Efraín Ale­gre again achieved, as in 2012 and 2017, an im­por­tant in­ter­nal arrange­ment to chan­nel the elec­toral flow of the dif­fer­ent lead­er­ships to­wards his third pres­i­den­tial can­di­dacy. Af­ter the party in­ter­nal elec­tions of June 2021 (in which Ale­gre won by less than 1%) it was spec­u­lated that there would even­tu­ally be a frag­men­ta­tion of votes which would weaken his chances, but two events in par­tic­u­lar show a new con­cen­tra­tion to­wards Efraín.

The first event took place in the PLRA Con­ven­tion held on March 13, 2022. There, gen­der par­ity was ap­proved for the par­lia­men­tary lists and the bal­ance of the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion was re­jected. But the most im­por­tant thing was to mea­sure the forces of the sides in dis­pute, that is, the forces of ephrain­ism ver­sus anti-ephrain­ism.

Graph II. Per­cent­age of Con­ven­tion Mem­bers by in­ter­nal groups (2021 to 2022)

Source: Pre­pared by the au­thors based on data from the PLRA’s TEI.

Ale­gre had tri­umphed in the pres­i­dency of the PLRA (in June 2021) with 34.4%, with which it is log­i­cal to point out that efrain­ismo had 34.4% of the con­ven­tion mem­bers of his team, and the rest would oc­cupy the anti-of­fi­cial­ism po­si­tion. How­ever, the re­sults of the Con­ven­tion in March 2022 (only 9 months af­ter the elec­tions) showed that 46% of the con­ven­tion mem­bers voted for Efraín Ale­gre’s po­si­tion, and 54% for the in­ter­nal op­po­si­tion. In less than a year, Ale­gre im­proved his in­ter­nal strength in terms of con­ven­tion mem­bers, climb­ing from 34.4% to 46%.

The sec­ond event has to do with the arrange­ments within the par­ty’s Board of Di­rec­tors. Just one month af­ter the party Con­ven­tion re­ferred to in the pre­vi­ous para­graph, Efraín Ale­gre de­cided to im­prove his cor­re­la­tion of forces in the Board of Di­rec­tors, since he did not have his own ma­jor­ity. Af­ter in­tense ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween fac­tions and agree­ments with re­gional lead­er­ships, he man­aged to achieve his own ma­jor­ity of party di­rec­tors. As a con­se­quence, Dion­i­sio Amar­illa and Basiliza Vázquez, trea­surer and gen­eral sec­re­tary of the PLRA re­spec­tively, were re­moved from their posts.

With a com­fort­able and sta­ble party ma­jor­ity, Ale­gre un­der­took the last step to­wards the pres­i­den­tial pri­maries: to reach in­ter­nal elec­toral agree­ments that would im­prove his cor­re­la­tion of forces with re­spect to the 2021 in­ter­nal elec­tions. To that ef­fect, he ob­tained the sup­port for the pres­i­den­tial pri­maries of his for­mer ri­vals such as Salyn Buzar­quis (his op­po­nent in the in­ter­nal party elec­tions of 2016 and 2021), Paková Ledesma, Alejo Ríos (gov­er­nor of Caaguazú), the po­lit­i­cal team of Víc­tor Ríos (to­day in the CSJ), and mul­ti­ple may­ors, coun­cilors and mem­bers of the lower house who pre­vi­ously be­longed to the move­ment of Dion­i­sio Amar­illa. In ad­di­tion, out­side the party vote, which may be im­por­tant be­cause the open elec­toral roll will be used, he reached an agree­ment for the pres­i­den­tial ticket with Soledad Núñez (and the Alianza En­cuen­tro Na­cional) and in Sep­tem­ber he ob­tained the sup­port of Miguel Pri­eto and all his po­lit­i­cal team in Alto Paraná.

Every­thing sug­gests that the Efraín Ale­gre and Soledad Núñez duo will com­fort­ably make it to the Con­certación’s pres­i­den­tial can­di­dacy. Ale­gre had the pa­tience and tenac­ity to gather the nec­es­sary elec­toral forces (in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal) to win the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dacy once more.

That is why, to es­ti­mate their vote ex­pec­ta­tion next De­cem­ber, it is nec­es­sary to ob­serve the per­cent­ages of the 2012 and 2017 pri­maries, and not those of 2016 and 2021 (see graph 1). It re­mains to be seen with what num­bers the Con­certación pri­maries will fi­nally close.

Cover im­age: Efraín Ale­gre’s Face­book