Preliminary results announced yesterday showed Paraguay's opposition Liberal Party candidate narrowly ahead of the ruling Colorado Party challenger in Sunday's vice-presidential election, in a contest that may mark defeat for Latin America's longest ruling party.
The Liberal Party candidate, Mr Julio Cesar Franco, secured 47.77 per cent of votes, a hair's breath ahead of the ruling party hopeful, Mr Felix Argana, who received 46.93 per cent of voter preferences, with over 90 per cent of votes counted. Between 55 and 60 per cent of Paraguay's two million registered voters went to the polls.
The election for a new vice-president was required to fill the vacancy left after the previous vice president, Mr Luis Maria Argana, was killed by assassins in March 1999.
Mr Argana's assassination forced the resignation of the then president Mr Raul Cubas, who was suspected of having played a role in Mr Argana's death.
The winner of last Sunday's vice presidential race will become the most powerful elected politician in Paraguay, as the current President Luis Gonzalez Macchi, appointed by the Supreme Court, enjoys a popularity rating of just 11 per cent amid the nation's worst recession in decades.
President Macchi formed a national unity government last year, comprising liberals and conservatives, but the agreement fell apart last February, as rival politicians prepared their vice-presidential bids.
Mr Argana (43) is an architect and son of the murdered vice president, who ran against Mr Franco, a 48-year-old pediatrician.
Ex-president Raul Cubas, who fled to Brazil, enjoyed the backing of retired Gen Lino Oviedo, a military populist who would have won the 1998 presidential elections had he not been prohibited from running by the nation's constitution, as he led a failed coup attempt in 1996.
Paraguay was ruled by the brutal US-backed dictator Gen Alfredo Stroessner from 1954 to 1989, when the ruling Colorado Party ousted Gen Stroessner but remained in power, their 53-year rule threatened only by internal rivals.
Retired Gen Oviedo, who is suspected of masterminding three coup attempts in the past four years, is awaiting extradition charges in Brazil. Mr Oviedo backed the Liberal Party challenger, Mr Julio Franco, in Sunday's elections, declaring that a change of government might result in an impartial investigation into his alleged involvement in Mr Argana's killing.
Mr Franco was considered to have little chance of victory until Gen Oviedo switched political allegiance to endorse his campaign from his prison cell in Brazil.
Mr Argana's campaign emphasised the need for drastic economic measures to improve Paraguay's grave economic woes while Mr Franco told voters that if he won, "President Gonzalez Macchi will have to get to work or go home."
The vote came just months after a renegade military faction tried to overthrow the government, with Gen Oviedo once more blamed. Gen Oviedo was also accused of responsibility in the death of seven protesters shot by rooftop snipers during a pro-democracy rally held in the wake of the Argana assassination.
President Macchi's Interior Minister reported last weekend that Peruvian rebels had entered the country, his Defence Minister suggesting that "certain groups" wanted to create "violence or confusion" by declaring victory early. However the capital, Asuncion, remained peaceful yesterday as both sides celebrated.