- Title: Paraguay: Vice Presidential Elections
- Date: 14th August 2000
- Summary: With 90. 5 percent of votes counted, the opposition hopeful was a whisker ahead on August 14 in Paraguay's vice-presidential election, increasing the possibility of an end of the Colorado (National Republican Association) party's 53-year rule. Preliminary official results gave the Liberal (Liberal Radical Authentic) party 47. 77 percent support, the ruling Colorado Party 46. 93 in the election to fill a post left vacant since the previous vice president, was gunned down in a March 1999 political killing. "I ask all Paraguayans to be vigilant towards democracy and to control every single vote," pleaded to his followers, the Liberal Party's leader, Julio Cesar Franco from his party's headquarters balcony. The final result of the cliff-hanger race in this land of beautiful rivers, rolling hills and forests will be known in five to six days but the Liberals have claimed victory. "We supported list number two (Franco's) at the market. We supported him because we are all 'Linistas' (supporters of Lino Oviedo). That's the truth and we are happy about list number two," said an unidentified market vendor. The race matched Colorado's 43-year-old candidate Felix Argana, an architect and son of slain Vice President Luis Maria Argana, against Liberal Party hopeful 48-year-old Julio Cesar Franco, a paediatrician. Argana did not appear in public and struck a conciliatory tone in speaking on a local radio station. Argana said his party had already declared that it would respect the results of the voting. However, he emphasised that his party would fight vote by vote. Colorado supporters prayed while others wept and some danced, too drunk to even know they were losing the election. "I belong to the Colorado party. I regret very much what has happened so far. However, / still have hope that we will win," said an unidentified woman at a market in Asuncion. Blocks away, in front of the Senate building still pock-marked with bullet holes and a tank-shell blast from a May coup attempt, the atmosphere was of quiet victory. Behind the pink Senate building, campfires burned next to a shantytown on the banks of the River Parana. Riot police lay on the grass, waiting for riots that never came. Whoever wins Sunday's (August 20) election will become the most powerful democratically elected politician in Paraguay, a land of 5. 4 million people, over 60 percent of whom live in poverty. The new vice president will pose a direct threat to the power and legitimacy of Colorado President Luis Gonzalez Macchi, who did not come to power via the ballot box and has a popularity rating of 11 percent amid the nation's deep recession. The election was the Liberal Party's best chance of gaining an executive post for the first time since 1939. Hanging over the process, however, was the spectre of coup plotter Lino Oviedo, who has stopped at nothing in his bid to rule the landlocked nation. Gonzalez Macchi was appointed president by the Supreme Court last year when President Raul Cubas fled to Brazil, together with Oviedo -- both accused of masterminding Argana's death and that of the protesters in the park. Oviedo is now in a Brazilian jail awaiting extradition to Paraguay. A Colorado, he has backed Franco and elements of Argana's faction in an attempt to destabilise the government. "The Oviedistas is the big winner of yesterday's vote. Something that was considered very difficult to occur during the transition, just happened; the Colorado Party broke, it split. If one sees that in 1998, Oviedo's vote got 54 per cent and now 47 per cent, there is an 8 per cent that has been lost. Those who wanted to vote for Oviedo, chose Julio Cesar Franco," said political analyst, Carlos Martini. International election observers said the election was one of the cleanest they had seen in Latin America. The actual figures were 546,697 votes to 537,046, or a lead of 9,651 votes out of a total of 1. 144 million counted. Macchi said Sunday's vote was a test of whether Paraguayans had tired of his rule. His party is set to become the world's longest-ruling when Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) steps down in December after 71 years in office. The authoritarian Luis Maria Argana, a disciple of brutal dictator General Alfredo Stroessner, once said Donald Duck could win an election if he ran as a Colorado. But the lame duck in the wee hours of Monday seemed to be his 43-year-old architect son. On August 24, 2000, opposition candidate Julio Cesar Franco was declared the narrow winner in the vice presidential race, with 47. 78 percent of the vote, breaking the ruling Colorado Party's 53-year grip on top elective offices.
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- Location: PARAGUAY ASUNCION
- Reuters ID: LDL0012DP21C3
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