Tabare Vazquez wins Uruguay presidential election

PanARMENIAN.Net - Tabare Vazquez won back his old job as president of Uruguay in a runoff election on Sunday, Nov 30, extending the decade-long rule of a leftist coalition and allowing it to roll out a groundbreaking law that legalizes the production and sale of marijuana, Reuters reported.

Vazquez won comfortably with 52.8 percent support while his center-right challenger, Luis Lacalle Pou, trailed on 40.5 percent, official results showed late on Sunday, Nov 30, night.

Lacalle Pou earlier conceded defeat after quick counts showed an easy victory for Vazquez, and thousands of ruling Broad Front supporters streamed through the rain-soaked streets of Montevideo, waving party banners in celebration.

Vazquez, 74, is a respected oncologist who helped heal rifts inside the Broad Front in the late 1990s and led it to power in 2005, ending two decades of conservative rule that followed a military dictatorship.

"I promise to work my utmost but I cannot, should not and do not want to work alone, I want to count on all Uruguayans," Vazquez told party loyalists on Sunday night.

When he was president from 2005 to 2010, his mix of welfare programs and pro-business policies helped kick-start a decade of robust growth and slash poverty.

Returning to power, he will succeed President Jose Mujica, an ally and former guerrilla whose straight-talking, unpretentious style won him widespread affection in the cattle-farming country of 3.4 million people.