PARAGUAY

Ex-bishop vows to end 61 years of one-party rule in Paraguay

BY BILL CORMIER

Associated Press

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Former Roman Catholic Bishop Fernando Lugo asked thousands of supporters at his final campaign rally Thursday to help him end 61 years of one-party rule in Paraguay and to build a new nation for the poor and indigenous.

The center-left presidential candidate sometimes called the ''Bishop of the Poor'' faces former Education Minister Blanca Ovelar of the long-ruling Colorado Party in Sunday's election. Polls show Lugo heading into the vote with a narrow lead.

''The bandits remain among us but there's good news: those who have hijacked the dreams of our people have only three days left!'' the bearded, 56-year-old Lugo told about 15,000 raucous supporters in Asuncion's main plaza. He spoke in Spanish and the Guarani Indian language.

Amid crackling fireworks and shouts of ''Ole, Ole Lugo,'' the former bishop railed against endemic corruption and called on the poor majority, including Indians and farming peasants, to choose ``a new country.''

Ovelar held her final campaign rally Wednesday night in the same plaza and said she would have a ''resounding victory'' in Sunday's race to succeed President Nicanor Duarte.

''I know what the people need and I know what has to be done,'' Ovelar told the rally.

If elected, the 50-year-old Ovelar would join Cristina Fernandez of Argentina and Michelle Bachelet of Chile as sitting women presidents elected this decade. Some 2.8 million Paraguayans are registered to vote for president, congressional and local posts on Sunday.

Ovelar has vowed to defend the poor peasant majority by bolstering farming cooperatives and creating jobs so thousands of poor Paraguayans do not have to emigrate each year.

A victory by Lugo would end 61 years of uninterrupted Colorado Party rule and make him the first former bishop to be elected president of his poor, landlocked agrarian nation.

''Sixty-one years, isn't that enough?'' asked Hilda Espinola, who wore a Lugo T-shirt at the rally.

Earlier Thursday, Lugo skipped a televised presidential debate, prompting Ovelar to chide him for failing to join her in the discussion. In the debate, Ovelar traded barbs with two other minor candidates including former army Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo.

Ovelar attacked Lugo as a ''failed priest'' whom she called ''unfaithful'' to the Vatican, which refused to accept his December 2006 resignation as bishop. Lugo resigned to sidestep a constitutional ban on clergy seeking office in Paraguay.

Lugo resists foes who tag him a leftist and says he's nothing like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

''I am not of the left, nor of the right. I'm in the middle as a candidate sought by many,'' he has said repeatedly.

Paraguay has been beset by sporadic political turmoil since the 35-year right-wing dictatorship of the late Gen. Alfredo Stroessner ended in 1989.