The Espinillo Indigenous group is 13 miles from the closest polling station — and nobody within the village has a automotive.
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 aspect of a freeway, a brief stroll from the polls. “We need to take care of them,” mentioned Mr. Paredes, 65, standing watch with six younger males he known as colleagues.
Then, after darkish, Mr. Paredes and his colleagues gathered a few of the Indigenous individuals and took down their identification numbers. Mr. Paredes informed them they have been to vote for the Colorado Social gathering — the dominant, right-wing political pressure in Paraguay — and to ensure their fellow group members did so, too. The younger males then walked the Indigenous individuals by way of a simulation of Paraguay’s voting machines on a telephone, guiding them to vote for Colorado candidates.
With New York Instances 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 the best way to get it to you,” he mentioned. “We will’t offer you something right here. You understand why.”
Democracy is being examined throughout the planet. In some international locations, leaders have attacked democratic establishments, together with in the USA, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico, whereas elsewhere they’ve upended the democratic course of altogether, as in Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
On the similar time, web disinformation has fed swirling claims of hacked voting machines, useless 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 honest elections: shopping for votes.
Political events in Mexico have handed out reward playing cards, groceries and even washing machines. Election observers mentioned final 12 months’s vote within the Philippines was affected by “blatant vote shopping for.” In February, a politician in Nigeria was caught with $500,000 and a listing of potential recipients the day earlier than nationwide elections.
Final month in Paraguay, a nation of seven.4 million within the middle of South America, The Instances discovered a particular sort of vote-buying, developed over a long time, 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 Instances witnessed representatives of the ruling Colorado Social gathering making an attempt to buy the votes of Indigenous individuals, and greater than a dozen Indigenous individuals mentioned in interviews that they’d accepted cash from the social gathering simply earlier than voting.
In a single case, a Colorado candidate for governor personally handed out 200,000 guaraníes, or practically $30 every, to greater than 100 Indigenous voters exterior a polling station within the riverside city of Fuerte Olimpo, in response to 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 group that was given the cash, mentioned it was customary. “It’s simply to purchase garments and issues for your loved ones,” he mentioned. He voted for that Colorado candidate, Arturo Méndez, due to guarantees of jobs and a brand new highway, he mentioned.
Mr. Méndez handily received the election. In an interview, he admitted to giving the Indigenous individuals money however mentioned 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 mentioned. “It might be heartless to not.”
Paying individuals to vote a sure manner is against the law 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 received the governorship by simply 28 votes. The shedding candidate is difficult the outcomes, claiming irregularities within the vote rely.
Vote shopping for can swing native elections, however not often nationwide ones, mentioned Ryan Carlin, a Georgia State College professor who has studied the problem. But it at all times undermines democracy by “quick circuiting the mechanisms of illustration and accountability,” he mentioned. “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 a long time in the past, and plenty of political events — not simply the Colorado — have since sought to manage their votes.
Within the days main as much as nationwide elections, social gathering employees fan out throughout the Chaco, an unlimited, arid area that encompasses Paraguay’s northwestern half, the place practically 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 response to election observers, native activists and Indigenous individuals who have skilled it. The purpose is to manage a group earlier than a rival social gathering can.
On Election Day, social gathering 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 apply 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,” mentioned Francisco Cáceres, 68, a member of the Qom Indigenous group.
European Union election observers mentioned 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 mentioned.
The apply is a part of the sturdy political machine that has strengthened the Colorado Social gathering’s grip on Paraguay, which it has managed for 71 of the previous 76 years, together with 4 a long time of navy dictatorship.
The Colorado presidential candidate, Santiago Peña, received by 460,000 votes, with 43 % of the whole. (Paraguay has fewer than 80,000 Indigenous adults, in response to estimates.) Mr. Peña is the political protégé of Horacio Cartes, a former president and the present social gathering chairman, who was sanctioned this 12 months by the U.S. authorities over accusations that he had bribed his method to energy.
The second- and third-place candidates have urged that Mr. Peña’s victory was rigged, however haven’t offered clear proof. The third-place candidate, whose supporters have blocked highways in protest, has been jailed on accusations of making an attempt to impede elections.
In an interview earlier than the election, Mr. Peña mentioned that if vote shopping for occurs, it will not swing races.
“The vote-buying argument doesn’t actually have a lot proof,” he mentioned. “It has by no means been potential to reveal an enormous buy scheme. If 2.5 to three million individuals vote, what number of votes would we now have to purchase?”
Nonetheless, amongst Paraguayans, vote shopping for is an open secret. “It’s virtually like with out it, it’s not an election,” mentioned the Rev. José Arias, a Catholic priest who makes use of his sermons to discourage his Indigenous flock from promoting its votes. “Folks agree in concept,” he mentioned. “It’s simply that many who agree additionally settle for” the bribes.
On the freeway encampment, Mr. Paredes and Mr. Ruffinelli mentioned they weren’t handing out bribes. The Colorado Social gathering paid for the bus, in addition to rooster, noodles and cooking oil they gave to the group, they mentioned. However they have been there as a result of they’d constructed relationships over time, they mentioned, and have been pushing Colorado candidates as a result of they have been the most effective for the group.
Everybody was free to vote how they wished, Mr. Ruffinelli mentioned, however he anticipated them to vote Colorado.
“They already promised,” Mr. Ruffinelli mentioned. He rattled off statistics: The Indigenous accounted for 86 % of the 5,822 registered voters within the native voting precinct. He mentioned he could be analyzing the outcomes to attempt to verify whether or not “this group betrayed us.”
Some within the Enxet Sur group mentioned they’d settle for cash — however nonetheless vote towards the Colorados. “If the Colorados include a suggestion, we’ll seize it, however we all know how we’re going to vote: for change,” mentioned Fermin Chilavert, 61, one of many group’s elders.
Others had already taken the cash and have been planning to vote as requested, together with 10 group members who agreed to behave as “political operators” for the social gathering on Election Day.
In a late-night assembly, Mr. Paredes and Mr. Ruffinelli defined to the operators that they have been to make sure different Indigenous individuals voted Colorado, together with by coming into polling cubicles with them. (Election observers mentioned political events often abuse legal guidelines permitting disabled individuals to be accompanied to the voting sales space.)
“You’re going to enter with them, you’ll educate them and you’ll inform them the place to click on,” Mr. Paredes mentioned to the Indigenous individuals, many staring nervously on the floor.
The subsequent morning, Election Day, a truck cease close to the polling station was crammed with buses. They’d ferried a whole bunch of Indigenous individuals to vote, and every was adorned with decals of a political social gathering, most for the Colorados.
On one bus with Colorado indicators, the Indigenous passengers mentioned they have been every given 100,000 to 150,000 guaraníes, or $14 to $21, and had voted Colorado.
The person working the bus, Catalino Escobar, mentioned the voters got a stipend to eat. (A sandwich and a Coca-Cola on the fuel station value $2.)
“I don’t know who the candidate is, to inform you the reality,” mentioned Mary Fernanda, 51, who mentioned she accepted 100,000 guaraníes to assist feed her youngsters. “I’m solely voting out of necessity.”
When the votes have been counted, the Colorado Social gathering 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.
