Uruguay's first leftist president reflects shift

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay -- Uruguay strengthened South America's political tilt to the left, electing the country's first leftist president as part of a regional shift by voters disenchanted by US-backed free market policies many blame for recent economic upheaval.

Municipal elections also reaped gains for left-leaning governments in Venezuela and Chile.

In Uruguay, the victory of socialist Tabare Vazquez in Sunday's vote highlighted a dramatic change for a staunch US ally. During the five-year rule of outgoing centrist President Jorge Batlle, relations with the United States had blossomed at a time when left-leaning and populist leaders took power in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela.

Pro-government candidates swept all but two of 23 governorships in Venezuela's elections Sunday, giving a boost to President Hugo Chavez. Chilean voters strongly endorsed the center-left government of President Ricardo Lagos in nationwide municipal elections, although the right-wing opposition won the symbolic mayoral race in Santiago.

Brazil's leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, however, was handed a bruising defeat in a major test of his ruling Workers Party's influence, which lost mayoral runoffs in Sao Paulo and several other key cities.

Still, the win by Vazquez -- a 64-year-old cancer specialist and former mayor of the capital of Montevideo -- aligned Uruguay with its neighbors, who are increasingly challenging US policies toward the region.

''This is the birth of a new Uruguay," said Magdalena Noguiera, a 29-year-old saleswoman. ''Hopefully, our message has been heard: We want change. Enough of the poverty, enough of the despair that we have seen in the last few years."

Uruguay, long one of Latin America's most stable economies, is climbing out of an economic depression in which the economy shrank by 11 percent two years ago.

The upheaval left one of every three Uruguayans below the poverty line -- a blow to a country where generous social benefits had for years assured one of the region's highest living standards. Thousands of young Uruguayans emigrated to Europe and the United States.

Over the past decade, many South American countries -- pushed by Washington -- have adopted free market reforms, opening their economies and privatizing state industries, only to see their economies slow to a grind.