[Marxism] AFP: Leftist ex-bishop ends Colorado Party rule in Paraguay: exit polls

[Walter Lippmann]

Leftist ex-bishop ends Colorado Party rule in Paraguay: exit polls
14 hours ago

ASUNCION (AFP) — Leftist coalition leader and former bishop Fernando
Lugo won Paraguay's presidential vote Sunday, trouncing rival Blanca
Ovelar by 43-37 percent and ending her Colorado Party's 61-year rule
in the country, according to exit polls.

Lino Oviedo, 64, a retired army chief who helped stage a coup that
ended the 35-year military dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, was in
third place with 16 percent of the vote, according to the poll by
ABC/Nanduti radio.

An Ultima Hora/Coin/Telefuturo exit poll gave Lugo's Patriotic
Alliance for Change 40.1 percent of the vote to 37.2 for Ovelar.

There is no runoff vote in Paraguay.

Polling stations in this landlocked South American nation of six
million people were open nine hours, in an election that also
selected a new congress.

The left-leaning opposition spearheaded by Lugo, 56, who was
suspended from his religious order by the Vatican for his entry into
politics, had feared fraud would mar the vote.

But as 70 observers from the Organization of American States
monitored ballot stations, electoral court chief Rafael Dendia said
voting went smoothly.

Shortly before polls closed at 4:00pm (2000 GMT), National police
chief Fidel Isasa said: "Right now everything is calm."

Former Colombian President Alfredo Pastrana, one of the observers,
said turnout in the election among the 2.9 million eligible voters
was high: "it's going to reach 60, 65 and hopefully even 70 percent."

Lugo supporters began celebrating their anticipated victory setting
off fireworks one and a half hour after polls were closed.

If the exit polls are confirmed by official results, Lugo will end
the Colorado Party's uninterrupted stint in power since 1947. After
Stroessner's downfall in 1989, Paraguay chose its first
democratically-elected president in 1993.

Outgoing President Nicanor Duarte constitutionally could not seek
re-election after serving a five-year term.

International Transparency, an organization monitoring for voter
fraud, reported some cases of corruption.

"We've seen voting cards being bought and money going around in some
polling booths," one of the group's observers Pilar Callizo told
Channel 4.

"We also saw Colorado Party teams inside and outside some polling
stations creating an atmosphere of intimidation," she added.

Lugo went into the voting very confident: "We are going to win," he
told reporters Friday.

His opponents have said he is in line with leftwing Latin American
firebrands Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

But Lugo, while championing the rights of the poor, says he is more
centrist as he seeks to overhaul a country with a per-capita income
of just 1,900 dollars.

Ovelar, 51, a former education minister and the first woman to run
for Paraguay's presidency, had asked voters to show her the same
consideration as her male counterparts.

"If I lose the election, I will accept the result. But I ask for the
same openness and the same objectivity as the other candidates," she
said last week.

Oviedo before the election told AFP he was also confident of a
"triumph."

Oviedo was released from his last stint behind bars last September by
a court that found he had been the victim of political persecution,
leaving him able to pursue his long-held ambition of becoming head of
state.

While Paraguay's formal economy relies on agriculture, corruption is
pervasive.

Duarte made little headway in stamping out graft, which also sullied
his own administration. Paraguay is a prime source of contraband
electronics and cigarettes, most smuggled into neighboring Brazil,
Argentina and Bolivia.


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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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