Reply #60: Great News!

[Octafish]

Thank you, eleny!

Adios, Colorados.

Ex-bishop wins Paraguayan election; 6-decade rulers dumped

By BILL CORMIER – 1 hour ago

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — The world's longest-ruling political party lost its six-decade grasp on power in Paraguay with the presidential victory of a former Roman Catholic bishop.

Political newcomer Fernando Lugo, a charismatic 56-year-old who resigned from the church to run for president, put an end to the Colorado Party's 61-year reign in Sunday's election, rallying voters against political corruption and economic disarray.

Emerging from a 1947 civil war, the Colorado Party was marked by the right-wing dictatorship of the late Gen. Alfredo Stroessner until his ouster in 1989.

Its candidate in Sunday's election, Blanca Ovelar, a protege of President Nicanor Duarte, had sought to become Paraguay's first woman president but conceded defeat on Sunday.

Lugo said Monday that his first priority would be to help Indians mired in poverty and to seek more revenues from Brazil from a dam on a river border between the two nations.

Interviewed by The Associated Press, Lugo also issued a personal apology to the pope for his incursion into politics and said he hoped to return to his post as bishop once his presidency ends.

CONTINUED...

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gAtkI6svsGoIegUVETkVwCJ9QYUgD906COFG0

"Presidente Lugo" sounds like greatness.