Cartes backs down:

The president of Paraguay, Horacio Cartes, has announced he will not after all seek re-election in 2018 when his term ends. Cartes, a former soft drink and tobacco magnate, had hoped to change the constitution to enable him to stand again; a plan that triggered violent protests in which the Congress building was set on fire. Cartes said his decision had been inspired by Pope Francis’s call for peace and dialogue in Paraguay. “I hope this gesture of renunciation will result in a deeper dialogue aimed at strengthening the republic,” he wrote in a letter to the Archbishop of Asunción, which was made public. Paraguayans toppled a brutal dictatorship in 1989, and many remain implacably opposed to allowing second terms.