Ex-Bishop Wins Paraguay's Presidency in Historic Vote

Opposition leader Fernando Lugo won Paraguay’s presidential election yesterday, ending 61 years of one-party rule, Reuters reports. With nearly all votes counted, the former bishop beat Paraguay’s first female presidential contender by 41% of the vote to 10%. “We've made history,” the center-leftist Lugo told a packed square as he hailed a newly “free and independent” country.

One of tens of thousands of supporters at the celebration said the crowd was "letting off steam after 61 years of suffocation," and called the defeated ruling party “thieves and rats." Lugo ran on a platform of ending corruption. He'll take power in August. (More Paraguay stories.)