Uruguayan left seeks to extend decade-long rule

Ten years after surging to power for the first time, Uruguay’s left is trying to hold onto it Sunday in elections to pick the successor to folksy iconoclast Jose Mujica. He is looking to hand power back to his predecessor, cancer doctor Tabare Vazquez, whose victory in 2004 represented a historic break with 174 years of dominance by the South American country’s two traditional parties, the “Colorados” (Reds) and “Blancos” (Whites, now officially called the National Party). Vazquez is polling at 44 percent heading into the election — leading dynamic young newcomer Luis Lacalle Pou of the National Party, who has 32 percent, and Pedro Bordaberry, the son of a former dictator who is running on the Colorado ticket and polling at 15 percent. The FA, a leftwing coalition founded in 1971, was banned under Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship and spent another two decades in opposition before finally coming to power.