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R 212152Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY ASUNCION
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6839
INFO RUEHWH/WESTERN HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS DIPL POSTS

UNCLAS ASUNCION 000267 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AMEMBASSIES FOR COM, DCM, PAO, POL, ECON 
SECSTATE FOR R, L, F, ECA, IIP, WHA/BSC, WHA/EX, WHA/PDA 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SCUL KPAO OEXC PGOV PREL CI AR BR PA UY
SUBJECT: PARAGUAY ELECTION DAY MEDIA PLAY 
 
REF: (A) ASUNCION 263 
 
¶1. (U) "Lugo Overpowers the Colorado Party," shouts almost identical 
Monday  morning headlines in two of the three national dailies, 
while circulation-leader ABC Color uses its entire front-page for an 
editorial entitled "The people defeat those who humiliated them, 
impoverished them and betrayed them."  The margin of Fernando Lugo's 
victory, so wide that even the ruling party candidate Blanca Ovelar 
conceded less than five hours after polls closed, immediately drew 
most media coverage toward the unbridled euphoria among opposition 
supporters, and reinforced a "fiesta civica" atmosphere celebrating 
the democratic process. 
 
¶2. (U) Beginning in the pre-dawn hours Election Day April 20 and 
extending far into the evening, top national radio networks offered 
unbroken, live coverage of how the voting process looked via 
frequent telephone reports from all corners of the country. 
Television coverage included on-screen crawlers listing cell phone 
numbers of election prosecutors designated to respond to fraud 
concerns.  Occasionally callers to media reported small, isolated 
incidents of alleged irregularities at individual voting places, but 
these moments were overshadowed by a consistent theme of generally 
widespread, peaceful and orderly citizen participation in all 
departments.  The media atmosphere all day long was calm, civil and 
reassuring, encouraging voter turnout. 
 
¶3.  (U) Radio announcers also made reference to "boca de urna" exit 
poll numbers throughout the day.  Paraguayan electoral law allows 
exit polls to be conducted while the election is in progress, but 
stipulates that news media wait until one hour after polls close to 
disclose what those exit polls suggest.  Paraguayan media squeaked 
around the margins of the law by updating four exit poll numbers 
throughout the day, but without indicating which of the four 
candidates was represented by which number.  With pre-election 
polling numbers consistently showing a six-to-seven point Lugo lead 
up into the final week, exit poll numbers echoing that same margin 
for one unnamed candidate left little mystery in the election day 
guessing game.  Two leading media powerhouses, "ABC Color" and 
ratings juggernaut "Radio Nanduti," updated their joint exit polling 
results hourly, the numbers visible at any moment on the "ABC Color" 
website. 
 
¶4.  (U) Paraguayan television news is so unaccustomed to "seeing" 
running vote count tallies that not even one of Paraguay's five 
national TV stations had its own custom graphics presentation 
package to display numbers as they were reported at the electoral 
commission in Asuncion.  All stations without exception simply 
pointed a TV camera at the black and white spreadsheet style graph 
projected onto a wall at the electoral commission, and announcers 
methodically went down the list reading aloud the candidates' vote 
totals -- department by department -- off of the primitive-looking 
display. 
 
¶5.  (U) The public release of vote totals the moment they arrived 
functionally reinforced the expected margin of difference between 
the top two presidential candidates, reducing suspicions and 
reflexive claims of fraud.  Soon after the polls closed Blanca 
Ovelar announced that there was a "technical tie" and that she still 
expected to win, while Lugo aides said they would not accept any 
declaration of a winner coming from what they said is a biased, 
ruling-party-controlled electoral commission.  It looked and sounded 
during the first two hours after the polls closed like Paraguayan 
post-election bitterness-as-usual.  But the transparency inherent in 
the running tally format quickly changed the tone of reporting, as 
both the Lugo and Ovelar camps saw history unfolding minute by 
minute.  TV pictures told the story:  increasing euphoria among Lugo 
followers on the streets of Asuncion and silent, empty halls at the 
ruling Colorado Party's headquarters. 
 
¶6. (U) Pedro Fadul of the Beloved Fatherland party conceded shortly 
after 7:00 pm Sunday evening; Lino Oviedo recognized Lugo's victory 
at 8:25 pm; and finally it was Blanca Ovelar's turn to surrender 
just before 9:00 pm.  The press scrum indecorously closed in around 
her, blocking her running mate and the Colorado Party president from 
view of the television cameras, and Paraguay quickly moved on to 
this next chapter in its political history.  The free and rapid flow 
of vote count information appears to have very much encouraged a 
peaceful, democratic electoral transition. 
 
CASON