By DPA,
Montevideo : Jose Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla who spent 15 years in prison, has won a presidential run-off in Uruguay, results showed Monday.
With nearly all the votes counted, results showed Mujica won 53.2 percent of the votes against 42.7 percent for his second-round opponent, former president Luis Alberto Lacalle (1990-95), in the run-off held Sunday.
The conservative Lacalle conceded defeat saying: “Mujica is the president of all Uruguayans. We have to accept it.”
The 74-year-old Mujica, a senator and nominee of the ruling coalition Frente Amplio (Broad Front), celebrated at a post-election rally.
“You know something people? It is you who should be on the stage, with us clapping for you,” he told thousands of supporters gathered despite bad weather outside the Broad Front’s election-day headquarters here.
In victory, Mujica called for reconciliation.
The Broad Front first took power in 2005, and President Tabare Vazquez, whose five-year term is expiring, led a successful reformist government that has retained the approval of about 60 percent of the population, according to opinion surveys.
He was banned from running because Uruguayan law forbids consecutive presidential terms.
Mujica’s inauguration is scheduled for March 1.