One Secret to a Latin American Party’s Dominance: Buying Votes

The Espinillo Indigenous neighborhood is 13 miles from the closest polling station — and nobody within the village has a automobile.

So two weeks in the past, on the eve of Paraguay’s election, Miguel Paredes, a retired ambulance driver turned native politician, loaded the Indigenous households onto a bus and introduced them to the facet of a freeway, a brief stroll from the polls. “We wish to take care of them,” stated Mr. Paredes, 65, standing watch with six younger males he referred to as colleagues.

Then, after darkish, Mr. Paredes and his colleagues gathered a number of the Indigenous individuals and took down their identification numbers. Mr. Paredes advised them they had been to vote for the Colorado Celebration — the dominant, right-wing political drive in Paraguay — and to verify their fellow neighborhood members did so, too. The younger males then walked the Indigenous individuals by way of a simulation of Paraguay’s voting machines on a cellphone, guiding them to vote for Colorado candidates.

With New York Occasions journalists inside earshot, Milner Ruffinelli, one of many younger males, slipped into the Indigenous language, Guaraní. “That cash that was promised to you, that’s all there, too, and Mr. Miguel Paredes goes to see get it to you,” he stated. “We will’t offer you something right here. You already know why.”

Democracy is being examined throughout the planet. In some nations, leaders have attacked democratic establishments, together with in the US, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico, whereas elsewhere they’ve upended the democratic course of altogether, as in Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

On the identical time, web disinformation has fed swirling claims of hacked voting machines, lifeless voters and stolen ballots, undercutting religion in clear elections.

However in many countries, a much less seen, however simply as pervasive risk continues to afflict free and truthful elections: shopping for votes.

Political events in Mexico have handed out present playing cards, groceries and even washing machines. Election observers stated final yr’s vote within the Philippines was tormented by “blatant vote shopping for.” In February, a politician in Nigeria was caught with $500,000 and an inventory of potential recipients the day earlier than nationwide elections.

Final month in Paraguay, a nation of seven.4 million within the heart of South America, The Occasions discovered a particular sort of vote-buying, developed over many years, on blatant show: Political operatives rounded up Indigenous individuals in Paraguay’s distant north and tried to manage or buy their votes.

On the weekend of nationwide elections, The Occasions witnessed representatives of the ruling Colorado Celebration trying to buy the votes of Indigenous individuals, and greater than a dozen Indigenous individuals stated in interviews that that they had accepted cash from the occasion simply earlier than voting.

In a single case, a Colorado candidate for governor personally handed out 200,000 guaraníes, or almost $30 every, to greater than 100 Indigenous voters exterior a polling station within the riverside city of Fuerte Olimpo, in line with interviews with 5 Indigenous individuals who took the cash. That quantity is equal to a number of weeks’ earnings for Paraguay’s poorest.

Nestor Rodríguez, chief of the Tomáraho Indigenous neighborhood that was given the cash, stated it was normal. “It’s simply to purchase garments and issues for your loved ones,” he stated. He voted for that Colorado candidate, Arturo Méndez, due to guarantees of jobs and a brand new highway, he stated.

Mr. Méndez handily gained the election. In an interview, he admitted to giving the Indigenous individuals money however stated it was solely as a result of they wanted meals and garments, and the federal government had forgotten them. “Sure, we assist them. However to not induce their vote,” he stated. “It could be heartless to not.”

Paying individuals to vote a sure method is illegitimate in Paraguay. Many funds are framed as monetary help, comparable to cash for lunch on Election Day.

Within the bordering province of Concepción, the place there are 3,000 Indigenous residents, the Colorado candidate gained the governorship by simply 28 votes. The shedding candidate is difficult the outcomes, claiming irregularities within the vote depend.

Vote shopping for can swing native elections, however hardly ever nationwide ones, stated Ryan Carlin, a Georgia State College professor who has studied the difficulty. But it at all times undermines democracy by “brief circuiting the mechanisms of illustration and accountability,” he stated. “If a vote is taken as a right and given in trade for one thing else, there’s no coverage promise on the opposite finish.”

Lots of Paraguay’s roughly 120,000 Indigenous individuals began integrating into trendy society only a few many years in the past, and lots of political events — not simply the Colorado — have since sought to manage their votes.

Within the days main as much as nationwide elections, occasion employees fan out throughout the Chaco, an enormous, arid area that encompasses Paraguay’s northwestern half, the place almost half of the Indigenous dwell.

At distant communities, the employees load Indigenous individuals onto buses, take them to fenced-in websites and ply them with meat and beer till the vote, in line with election observers, native activists and Indigenous individuals who have skilled it. The purpose is to manage a neighborhood earlier than a rival occasion can.

On Election Day, occasion employees both pay the Indigenous individuals for his or her identification playing cards — thus limiting them from voting — or bus them to the polls and hand them money.

The observe is so entrenched, it has developed its personal vocabulary: “herding” the Indigenous voters and placing them in “corrals.”

“It’s like we’re animals to be purchased,” stated Francisco Cáceres, 68, a member of the Qom Indigenous group.

European Union election observers stated they witnessed such “corrals” in Paraguay’s 2013 and 2018 elections, and noticed a number of circumstances of vote shopping for within the April 30 election. Events search to buy the votes of many Paraguayans, not simply the Indigenous, the observers stated.

The observe is a part of the sturdy political machine that has strengthened the Colorado Celebration’s grip on Paraguay, which it has managed for 71 of the previous 76 years, together with 4 many years of navy dictatorship.

The Colorado presidential candidate, Santiago Peña, gained by 460,000 votes, with 43 p.c of the entire. (Paraguay has fewer than 80,000 Indigenous adults, in line with estimates.) Mr. Peña is the political protégé of Horacio Cartes, a former president and the present occasion chairman, who was sanctioned this yr by the U.S. authorities over accusations that he had bribed his strategy to energy.

The second- and third-place candidates have prompt that Mr. Peña’s victory was rigged, however haven’t introduced clear proof. The third-place candidate, whose supporters have blocked highways in protest, has been jailed on accusations of trying to impede elections.

In an interview earlier than the election, Mr. Peña stated that if vote shopping for occurs, it might not swing races.

“The vote-buying argument doesn’t actually have a lot proof,” he stated. “It has by no means been potential to exhibit an enormous buy scheme. If 2.5 to three million individuals vote, what number of votes would now we have to purchase?”

Nonetheless, amongst Paraguayans, vote shopping for is an open secret. “It’s nearly like with out it, it’s not an election,” stated the Rev. José Arias, a Catholic priest who makes use of his sermons to discourage his Indigenous flock from promoting its votes. “Individuals agree in idea,” he stated. “It’s simply that many who agree additionally settle for” the bribes.

On the freeway encampment, Mr. Paredes and Mr. Ruffinelli stated they weren’t handing out bribes. The Colorado Celebration paid for the bus, in addition to hen, noodles and cooking oil they gave to the neighborhood, they stated. However they had been there as a result of that they had constructed relationships over time, they stated, and had been pushing Colorado candidates as a result of they had been the most effective for the neighborhood.

Everybody was free to vote how they wished, Mr. Ruffinelli stated, however he anticipated them to vote Colorado.

“They already promised,” Mr. Ruffinelli stated. He rattled off statistics: The Indigenous accounted for 86 p.c of the 5,822 registered voters within the native voting precinct. He stated he can be analyzing the outcomes to attempt to confirm whether or not “this neighborhood betrayed us.”

Some within the Enxet Sur neighborhood stated they’d settle for cash — however nonetheless vote in opposition to the Colorados. “If the Colorados include a proposal, we’ll seize it, however we all know how we’re going to vote: for change,” stated Fermin Chilavert, 61, one of many neighborhood’s elders.

Others had already taken the cash and had been planning to vote as requested, together with 10 neighborhood members who agreed to behave as “political operators” for the occasion on Election Day.

In a late-night assembly, Mr. Paredes and Mr. Ruffinelli defined to the operators that they had been to make sure different Indigenous individuals voted Colorado, together with by getting into polling cubicles with them. (Election observers stated political events usually abuse legal guidelines permitting disabled individuals to be accompanied to the voting sales space.)

“You’ll enter with them, you’ll educate them and you’ll inform them the place to click on,” Mr. Paredes stated to the Indigenous individuals, many staring nervously on the floor.

The following morning, Election Day, a truck cease close to the polling station was crammed with buses. They’d ferried tons of of Indigenous individuals to vote, and every was adorned with decals of a political occasion, most for the Colorados.

On one bus with Colorado indicators, the Indigenous passengers stated they had been every given 100,000 to 150,000 guaraníes, or $14 to $21, and had voted Colorado.

The person working the bus, Catalino Escobar, stated the voters got a stipend to eat. (A sandwich and a Coca-Cola on the gasoline station price $2.)

“I don’t know who the candidate is, to let you know the reality,” stated Mary Fernanda, 51, who stated she accepted 100,000 guaraníes to assist feed her youngsters. “I’m solely voting out of necessity.”

When the votes had been counted, the Colorado Celebration once more dominated elections throughout Paraguay, retaining the presidency and strengthening its management of Congress.

The 19 Indigenous individuals who ran for nationwide or state seats all misplaced. Paraguay has by no means elected anybody who identifies as Indigenous to nationwide workplace.