Uruguayan Leftist Candidate Declares Win

[ConsAreLiars]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/consumer_news/10065345.htm?1c

Posted on Sun, Oct. 31, 2004

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - Leftist candidate Tabare Vazquez declared victory in Uruguay's presidential election Sunday after exit polls showed him surging past two rivals with a majority of the votes, apparently aligning this small South American country with a regionwide political shift leftward.

Victory for the 64-year-old Vazquez, who would become the first leftist president in Uruguayan history, would add the nation to Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela as countries where leftist or center-left leaders came to power on public disenchantment with financial turmoil and with U.S.-backed free-market economic policies. Vazquez has promised moderate policies, with an emphasis on helping the country's poor.

"Uruguayans, let's celebrate!" Vazquez, an oncologist and former mayor of Montevideo, shouted from a balcony Sunday night, addressing thousands of chanting, cheering supporters in the capital.

Both the CIFRA and Factum polling groups gave nearly identical figures of 51 percent for Vazquez of the Broad Front leftist coalition and 34 percent for runner-up Jorge Larranaga of the National Party. The exit polls did not give a margin of error

[Kire]

1. don't they have an election board to declare victory for him?

it sounds so, dictatorial, to declare yourself a winner

[ConsAreLiars]

2. You may have preferred a right-wing victory

but a 51-37 margin seems like enough to declare victory - certainly far better grounds than a 5/4 Supreme Court decision.

[oscar111]

3. Not history's first: '30's or so, very LW

I seem to recall, some World Almanac surprised me... in its thumbnail histories of all countries, it said of URuguay, that it had "highly progressive social policies". That surprised me, since it is next to RW paraguay.

What does -guay, suffix, mean?

What is the story on Argentina? I had not heard much of it , except that folks lost money that was in banks.

[Moderator]

4. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=948715