ASUNCION, April 21: A sandal-wearing former bishop won Paraguay’s presidential election on Sunday, ending the ruling Colorado Party’s 61-year rule.

Fernando Lugo, a mild-mannered leftist who quit the cloth three years ago saying he felt powerless to help Paraguay’s poor, ousted the ruling Colorado Party in Sunday’s election with promises to tackle inequality and stamp out corruption.

“We’ll make democracy together!” the bearded, bespectacled 56-year-old former Roman Catholic bishop told cheering supporters on Sunday night, promising to put the poor first. “It is the people who will build a democracy we Paraguayans deserve,” he told Canal 13 television.

Local media trumpeted Lugo’s victory. Daily newspaper ABC carried a banner headline proclaiming “a dirty and degrading transition” under the Colorado Party had finally been buried. Two other newspapers led with the headline “Amen!”. Lugo calls himself an independent and has steered clear of Latin America’s more radical left-wing leaders, such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

He is however seen as a likely ally of moderate leftist presidents in the region, which has steadily turned away from the right-wing dictatorships, extremely corrupt governments and Marxist rebellions that were so prevalent in the late 20th century. Lugo will take office on Aug 15 and has vowed to carry out agrarian reform to ensure poor peasant farmers can till their own land.—Reuters