Senator Celeste Amarilla announces legal action over election exit polls

Senator Celeste Amarilla of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA) has announced plans to pursue legal action following the recent municipal elections in Paraguay. Amarilla alleges that the dissemination of exit polls and surveys during the voting period violated the Electoral Code and functioned as an “extortion of the electorate.”

She argued that these premature measurements were used to influence voters and caused irreversible damage to opposition candidates by potentially discouraging citizens from voting if they believed the outcome was already decided. The senator noted that official results differed significantly from early projections, which had suggested a lead of up to 30% for certain candidates.

In the race for the Intendencia of Asunción, official counts showed Soledad Núñez winning with 47.78% of the vote, narrowly defeating Camilo Pérez, who received 45.98%, a margin of just 1.8 percentage points.