(26 Oct 2009)
A blunt-talking former guerrilla seeking to maintain the left's hold on power in Uruguay easily got the most votes in Sunday's presidential elections, but failed to win the majority needed to avoid a November runoff.
Jose "Pepe" Mujica got about 48 percent of the votes, to about 30 percent for former president Luis Alberto LaCalle, a free-marketeer who wants to cut government and taxes and reduce alliances with Latin American leftists.
Two voter initiatives - one to remove amnesty for human rights abuses under the 1973-85 dictatorship and another to enable mail-in votes by citizens living outside Uruguay - also failed to win majorities, according to exit polls by the companies Cifra, Factum and Equipos Mori.
Exit polls in Uruguay suggest the presidential race is still too close to call.
Mujica and his vice-presidential candidate, Danilo Astori, conceded that a runoff would be necessary but expressed optimism.
They noted that even if Lacalle picks up all the votes of right-wing third-place finisher Pedro Bordaberry, Sunday's margin would still give the ruling Broad Front the edge in the second round of voting on November 29.
Mujica was a leader of the Tupamaru guerrillas, who were inspired by the Cuban revolution to organise kidnappings, bombings, robberies and other attacks on the conservative but democratically elected governments of the 1960s.
Convicted of killing a policeman in 1971, he endured torture and solitary confinement during nearly 15 years in prison.
In the quarter-century since he was freed, Mujica helped transform the guerrillas into a legitimate political movement and the driving force within the leftist Broad Front coalition.
He eventually received the most number of votes in Congress and served as Vazquez's agriculture minister, developing a
reputation for populist policies and impolitic commentary.
Lacalle pushed hard to privatise government as president in 1990-95.
This time around, he wants to remove the income tax imposed by outgoing President Tabare Vazquez and said he would "go in with a chain saw" to reduce the bureaucracy in the South American country of 3.4 (m)million residents.
The military amnesty law passed in 1986 to balance an amnesty granted a year earlier for Mujica and other guerrillas.
Lacalle described it as key to a peaceful transition to democracy after the 12-year dictatorship.
Vazquez, who is not allowed to sit consecutive terms in office under the constitution, ended decades of two-party conservative rule in Uruguay with his victory five years ago.
The Broad Front has expanded government payrolls, but Vazquez is ending his single term with the economy swinging up and high public approval ratings.
The eventual winner will take office March 1.
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