PARAGUAY ELECTION DAY MEDIA PLAY

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