Analyst: Paraguay's Lugo likely to take moderate route to change

ASUNCION, Paraguay (CNN) -- Paraguay's President-elect Fernando Lugo, who ended 61 years of single-party rule with his victory Sunday, will face a largely conservative Congress that may make carrying out his reforms difficult, according to the vice president-elect and an analyst.

Lugo, a 56-year-old ex-Roman Catholic bishop, won Sunday's election with about 41 percent of the votes, according to preliminary results reported by the government's election department.

The election marked the end of the Colorado Party's uninterrupted rule, which had lasted since 1947.

Although the "bishop of the poor" said he ran as an independent, he was backed by the Patriotic Alliance for Change -- a coalition of center and center-left parties.

Many international observers said Lugo's victory signaled the spread of leftist politics to yet another country in South America.

But his vice president-elect, Federico Franco, said the political composition of the country's legislative body indicates that there will likely not be any abrupt changes in Paraguay.

"We have a Congress that is fundamentally conservative," Franco said.

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In the Chamber of Senators, one of the two bodies of Congress, he said, "of the 45 senators, for example, only one is of the left. Forty-four are of center-conservative tendency."

An analyst agreed, and said that Lugo will most likely have to look for a moderate way for change. "I don't see the possibility that Lugo will be too radical," Alfredo Boccia said.

"I believe that he is far from being a Chavez or Evo Morales," he said, referring to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales. E-mail to a friend

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