Ex-Bishop Lugo sweeps Colorados from power

ASUNCIÓN - Well, he made it. Former bishop Fernando Lugo was elected the next president of Paraguay yesterday night, bringing an end to 61 years of one-party rule. Blanca Ovelar, the candidate for the ruling Colorado party accepted defeat close to 9 pm local time, saying the results were “irreversible” and congratulating the Paraguayan people for their behaviour during the voting.

As the official results were still to be announced hundreds of supporters of the one time bishop of San Pedro clamoured in to the streets, honking the horns of their cars and cheering for their candidate.

“This marks a historic date in the history of this country,” Lugo told a press conference while still awaiting the final results. “A few months ago nobody dreamed that this could happen, that a group of political dreamers could unite and put the good of the country first.” He heralded in a new era for Paraguay and an end to “political clientilism."

Lugo’s win brings an end to the hegemony of the Colorado Party, the longest ruling party in the world still to be in power. The party, which continued to rule throughout the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989), is widely blamed for the economic malaise of recent years and often accused of rampant corruption.

The former bishop heads a rainbow coalition ranging from peasant farmer movements to the establishment Liberal Party. He has promised land reform and said he will renegotiate the treaties of the enormous Itaipú and Yacretá damns, hydro-electrical plants that Paraguay shares with Brazil and Argentina respectively.

With 85 percent of the vote counted the leader of the Patriotic Alliance for Change coalition had won at least 40 percent of the vote. That result meant a victory over Ovelar who polls suggested would end with around 31 percent of the vote. Lino Oviedo, a former general convicted of committing a coup, looked to get 22 percent.