Among his early business ventures was a currency exchange company that also made him the target of an investigation in the mid-1980s by the dictatorial regime of Alfredo Stroessner. Having spent some four years as a fugitive (assumed abroad), Cartes finally returned to Asunción in 1989 and was briefly incarcerated but freed when charges of currency fraud were dropped. His principal opponent in the presidential election was Efraín Alegre (Liberal Party). The incumbent president, Federico Franco, a Liberal politician who was barred from seeking another term, had assumed office in 2012 after leftist President Fernando Lugo was impeached in response to his alleged mishandling of a deadly conflict between peasants and police. Horacio Cartes was elected President of Paraguay in 2013. He is a member of the Colorado Party.