With municipal elections scheduled for October 4, opposition candidate for mayor of Asunción Soledad Núñez has put an audit of the city administration at the center of her campaign and criticized a new collective agreement proposed by acting mayor Luis Bello. She said the initiative, brought before the Municipal Council just days before the vote, could expand a system of political benefits and increase pressure on taxpayers.
In an interview with ABC TV, Núñez alleged that about 93% of municipal resources go to operating expenses. She also promised to audit every last guaraní of the administrations of former mayor Óscar “Nenecho” Rodríguez and the acting administration. The allegations about the political use of resources and the share of spending were the candidate’s statements; the available material contains no independent verification of these figures or claims.
Núñez is running with the Juntos por Asunción alliance and has presented a potential victory in the capital as a way to show that the opposition can govern and create conditions to compete in the 2028 general elections. She predicts she will receive votes from Colorado Party members dissatisfied with the party leadership and has called for turnout above 60%. Raúl Latorre, a lawmaker and Camilo Pérez’s campaign chief, rejected her prediction, saying he believes Colorado voters will support the candidate of the National Republican Association (ANR), known as the Colorado Party.
Pérez, the Colorado Party’s candidate for mayor of Asunción, is the target of a party projection of 150,000 votes. Gerardo “Gringo” Benítez, a city council candidate, said the ANR aims to exceed by about 20,000 votes the more than 133,000 it received in the capital’s primaries. This is a campaign target, not an independent estimate of voter preferences.
The contest in the capital is part of a broader municipal competition. The Central and Alto Paraná departments have 1,960,920 eligible voters combined: 1,384,092 in the first department and 576,828 in the second. The Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA) aims to increase the number of municipalities it governs nationwide from 77 to 114; in Central, it seeks to go from 10 to 13, and in Alto Paraná, from four to seven.
In Alto Paraná, the Yo Creo movement has candidates in 18 of the department’s 22 districts. Its coordinator, Vidal Vázquez, said the goal is to retain Ciudad del Este with Daniel Mujica and win seven new mayoralties, forming a bloc of eight municipalities. The PLRA said that 70% of its Lista 2 city council candidates support Mujica, although opposition candidacies are divided in Presidente Franco. In Itauguá, Miguel Prieto promised to triple the municipal budget during a future administration led by Mauricio Ortiz, the Liberal candidate; the promise was made at a campaign event.
The forecasts and party targets show how leaders in different regions view the municipal vote as a test of organization ahead of 2028. The results, however, will depend on the votes cast on October 4 and do not, by themselves, determine the outcome of the presidential election.