Cartes speaks after taking oath in a ceremony attended by (first row, left to right) Presidents Ollanta Humala of Peru, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan, Jose Mujica of Uruguay, and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, and Spanish Crown Prince Felipe.

DPA/AFP/Asuncion

Tobacco magnate Horacio Cartes was sworn in as Paraguay’s new president yesterday, following a troubled period in the history of the South American country.
“Our obsession is to win every battle in the war on poverty we are declaring today,” Cartes, of the centre-right Colorado Party, said in his inaugural address in Asuncion.
“The amount of public money that has allegedly been devoted to the fight against poverty and efforts to favour indigenous peoples without results is staggering,” he said. “If in five years, we haven’t substantially reduced poverty, all our work will have been for nothing.”
The inauguration ceremony was attended by several leaders, including presidents Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, who have recently clashed with Paraguay.
Cartes’s inauguration is regarded as crucial to restoring the country’s international reputation after the speedy impeachment by Congress of then-president Fernando Lugo and his replacement by his vice-president Federico Franco in June 2012 led several nations to limit their ties to Paraguay.
Paraguay was suspended from membership of the South American trade bloc Mercosur and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), because its neighbours regarded the impeachment as an “institutional coup”.
Paraguay, a land-locked country of 6.6mn sandwiched between Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, is expected to rejoin both groups under Cartes.
He also reached out to the leaders of neighbouring Latin American states attending the ceremony, saying his “strong predisposition is to maintain cordial bilateral relations rather than aggravate differences of the moment”.
“Our intention is that we become closer. Understanding and co-operation honour us,” he said.
Cartes, 57, won Paraguay’s presidential election on April 21 with 46% of the votes. His rise to the presidency, with a five-year-mandate, sealed the return to power of the Colorado Party, which led the country for six decades until 2008.
As cathedral bells pealed, Cartes prayed for “wisdom, prudence and justice to fulfill my duty to serve the noble Paraguayan people”.
Cartes, 57, took the oath of office in the gardens of the presidential palace.
Absent at Cartes’ inauguration was Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, a close leftist ally of Lugo who was pointedly not invited to the ceremony.
But the presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Peru were there, signalling an end to the international ostracism Paraguay experienced in the wake of the political crisis two years ago.
Mercosur’s presidents said in July that the organisation would lift the suspension after Cartes’ inauguration, but Paraguay has said it will not return to the trading bloc as long as Venezuela holds its rotating presidency.
Cartes met separately on Wednesday with Rousseff and Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera, and was expected to meet after the ceremony with Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica and Peru’s President Ollanta Humala.
Cartes’ designated foreign minister, Eladio Loizaga, has said the new government would pursue relations with Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay bilaterally.
Unasur, a regional security organisation that also suspended Paraguay over the Lugo ouster, announced over the weekend that it was lifting the measure in view of the April elections, which it said were held “with total normality and broad citizen participation”.
Also at the inauguration were Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou and Prince Felipe of Spain.