Paraguay's ruling Colorado Party yesterday celebrated its triumph in a presidential election, and Mr Raul Cubas, the country's next leader, called the opposition bad losers for alleging fraud.
"This result shows that the country belongs to the Colorado Party and that there are people outside the party who trust the party too," Mr Cubas said before being received by the outgoing Colorado President, Mr Juan Carlos Wasmosy.
Mr Cubas, who will be Paraguay's second civilian president in half a century, said the Democratic Alliance candidate, Mr Domingo Laino, who has alleged he was cheated, "cannot digest reality".
Partial results from the High Electoral Court, with more than 40 per cent of Sunday's votes counted, gave Mr Cubas 54 per cent of the vote and an 11-point lead over Mr Laino, meaning that the Colorados will keep their 51year grip on power in Paraguay.
It was the third general election since Paraguay emerged from the 35-year dictatorship of Gen Alfredo Stroessner in 1989 - and the fairest, said foreign monitors.
Mr Cubas was the last-minute replacement for the army strongman, Mr Lino Oviedo, whose Colorado candidacy was cut short just two weeks before the vote, when the Supreme Court confirmed his 10-year prison sentence for an attempted coup in 1996.
The headlines of Paraguay's newspapers, which are all pro-Colorado, read "The Colorados Continue" and "Cubas Won!" They gave short shrift to Mr Laino's allegations on Sunday of "shameful" attempted fraud affecting "80 per cent of the results". In the confusion, Mr Laino had proclaimed himself the winner too.
A bearded 62-year-old who was exiled by Mr Stroessner, Mr Laino led a coalition of Liberals and Social Democrats in his third bid for power. He says he was robbed of victory in 1993 by fraud.
This time the electoral tribunal was under his alliance's political control, and it was the ruling Colorados who had feared fraud.