[| I, CWAS |]

South America continues it's leftist course. Vazquez cannot do any worse than the despots. However I wonder what he will do to the agreed upon integration to further globalization. Well looks like any decisions coming out of the LAIA are null in Uruguay, if he is going to be an ideologue.

Voter anger fueled by the country's economic crisis seemed certain to sweep Socialist Tabare Vazquez into Uruguay's presidency.

Opinion polls show that Vazquez, 64, has more than 50 percent support, enough to avoid a run-off vote.



Vazquez leads a coalition of leftist parties that includes former Tupamaro guerrillas that fought the 1973-1985 military junta.

If victorious the coalition will break the stranglehold the Colorado and National parties have held the presidency since Uruguay's independence from Spain in 1825.

Vazquez pressed his ballot against his heart before dropping it in the poll box in a working class Montevideo neighborhood precinct.

Swamped by supporters and reporters, Vazquez confidently dedicated "his triumph" to a recently deceased leftist politician.

"We are going to extend a brotherly and tolerant hand," said Vazquez after voting, "because the Uruguay of the future has to be built between all of us."

Vazquez's nearest rival is attorney Jorge Larranaga, 48, of the National Party, who polls show has around 30 percent support. Larranaga urged "respect and tolerance" as he cast his ballot.

Across town Colorado Party President Jorge Batlle -- blamed for the country's worst economic slump in decades -- stood in line and waited for two people ahead of him to cast ballots before he could vote.

Under Batlle, president since 2000, Uruguay suffered an economic meltdown that resulted in an 80 percent drop of the country's hard-currency reserves, saw official unemployment rise to 20 percent, and left one in four Uruguayans destitute.

Batlle cannot run for re-election, but is running for a senate seat. Uruguayans "will vote in absolute liberty and will elect its governors like always," he said in a brief and tense exchange with reporters.

According to polls the official Colorado's candidate has around 10 percent support.

Voters are choosing a president for a five-year term as well as 31 senators and 99 deputies.

Some 2.5 million of Uruguay's 3.4 million citizens are obliged by law to vote. Polls opened at 1000 GMT and were to close at 2230 GMT. Election officials say results will be known early Monday.

The new president will tackle Uruguay's 12 billion-dollar debt and a currency recovering from a two-thirds devaluation.

Vazquez, a medical doctor and former mayor of Montevideo, lost presidential bids in 1994 and 1999.

Squeezed between Brazil's southern tip and Argentina, Uruguay was ruled by an authoritarian military junta between 1973 and 1985.

If elected, Vazquez would follow other left-of-center candidates taking office in South America, including Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2002), Argentina's Nestor Kirchner (2003), Ecuador's Lucio Gutierrez (2002), Chile's Ricardo Lagos (2000) and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez (1998).

[Gral. Stamelin]

If South America is continuing its leftist course this is obviously the time when the people have stopped and think about their future as a nation. Independence is a dream difficult to achieve for Latin America, due to the constant advances of imperialist comerce in our nations, but we look forward to achieve a more just future for our kids.
Of course, most of the republicans, fascists, and whatsoever rightists here will say I'm mistaken, but they haven't had a drop pf empathy, and they really haven't seemed to care about that notorious fact during past discussions. What I'm sayng is that it is too difficult for an average educated person from a developed country to understand the feelings of a third world nation, such as the latin american countries.
The truth is that the macro-economycal facts show that most Latin American economies such as the Brazilian and the Mexican economy seem to be growing at a proper rate, (just proper, I wouldn't say a higher adjective) but the problem resides in the life quality of the most part of the people, which are extremely adverse.
In Fox's sexennial plan in my country, for example, we have experienced a growth of 10% of the rate of extreme poberty, (in my country that means having a tenement as home, if you have a home, and earning less that 4 dollars a day) while "president" Fox keeps travelling around the world talking about a free-trade treaty between Mexico and China (which is our top competitor in the industry of labor force).
That's the problem in Latin America.
OUr countries are very rich, the problem is that the wealth is acummulated by so few.
That's why the socialist block advances every day in our dear Latin America. The people just want what for so many years has been denied to them: justice.