Paraguay
Municipal elections will take place without accredited national observers in Paraguay
The deadline to register with the TSJE expired without any formal applications. Analysts are calling for a law to regulate electoral observation, while noting that this cannot limit the citizen oversight provided for in the Constitution.
Paraguay’s municipal elections on October 4 will be held without nationally accredited observers before the Superior Court of Electoral Justice, after the deadline to request that authorization expired on September 4 with no registrations, according to Última Hora.
According to that outlet, the TSJE’s director of Intermediate Organizations, Nery Velilla, said there were two people interested in the process, but they did not move forward because they did not meet the requirement of having legal status.
Still according to Última Hora, this scenario coincides with Resolution No. 77, issued in May 2026, which requires legal status, details on the organization’s deployment during the electoral process, identification of those responsible and a financing plan, among other points.
The newspaper also recalled that in the 2023 general elections, the observation missions of the European Union and the Organization of American States questioned the exclusion of Decidamos and Alma Cívica as national observers, after new requirements were added shortly before the vote.
According to Última Hora, the Electoral Justice rejected Decidamos’ accreditation on the grounds that its work included a parallel count to the official one, while in the case of Alma Cívica, the fact that Bruno Defelippe, a member of its board, was listed as a senatorial candidate weighed against it.
Analysts Guzmán Ibarra and Esteban Caballero agreed on the need to strengthen civil society participation as a control mechanism. Ibarra said it would be advisable to move forward with joint work between the TSJE and organizations, as well as to debate a law in Congress. However, he warned that the lack of a specific rule should not be used to restrict citizen oversight, since the National Constitution establishes the public and supervised nature of the count, and the Electoral Code allows any voter to observe it.
Caballero, for his part, considered it useful to have regulations that organize observation of the pre-election period, voting day and the post-election stage, with the aim of having legitimate, certified and credible national and international observations.
Última Hora added that Ibarra also attributed the lack of observers to a deterrent effect from the so-called anti-NGO law, in the view that the increase in requirements and costs discourages organizations from participating. He also cited a decline in international cooperation.
For the October 4 elections, the presence of international observers from the Organization of American States, the Association of Women Electoral Magistrates of the Americas, the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations and A-WEB is planned, the Paraguayan outlet reported.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not do any original reporting on this fact.
