At 44 years old, this was the first time that Peña participated in a national election. His only previous experience had been when in 2017 he lost the presidential nomination in the Colorado primaries against the current president Mario Abdo.
Tall and athleticPeña is considered a technocrat with a brilliant academic career, but little political experience.
His entry into politics came from the hand of the former president Horace Cartes (2013-18), who affiliated him with the Colorado Party and had him as Minister of Economy.
“(Peña) is someone very serene, his tranquility is impressive,” one of his collaborators told AFP.
– Studies and family –
In the living room of his elegant house in Asunción, his photos are exhibited embracing his wife Leticia Ocampos, whom he married when they were teenagers after she became pregnant. In addition to that son, now 26 years old, the couple has a 17-year-old girl.
“I was a father at 17 years old. It was a hard time in life. it was not planned, but it led me to build on very solid principles of commitment, responsibility, honesty, integrity, knowing that there are people who depend on you. And without realizing it, at the age of 17 I began to develop a vocation for service, ”he assured.
Peña remembers that the families of both helped them and that his father encouraged him to continue studying. He also acknowledges the support of his mother and his two older brothers.
Thus, he was able to go to Columbia University in New York and worked for a time for the International Monetary Fund. He was also part of Directory of the Central Bank of Paraguay.
He says that during the election campaign he received “great family support.” “I have a wonderful family nucleus that has accompanied me, that has supported me throughout this period,” she commented in an interview with AFP.
Rejects the legalization of abortion because it seems to him “the easiest, a shortcut”. And he declares himself determined to defend the family “in its traditional composition: mom, dad and children.”
– Taiwan, Jerusalem, employment, dictatorship –
Peña has said that he will preserve diplomatic relations with Taiwan, despite the questioning of productive sectors, especially agribusiness and livestock, which ask to open exports to China.
He also assured that he is united by “an enormous bond of brotherhood with Israel” and intends to move the Paraguayan embassy back to Jerusalema measure that, in line with Donald Trump, Cartes had taken at the end of his government and that the current president Mario Abdo reversed.
Although during the campaign he did not present a government program, one of his main promises was the creation of 500,000 jobs.
