ASUNCION - Fernando Lugo, who won Paraguay's presidential election Sunday, was nicknamed the "bishop of the poor" before the Vatican suspended him for getting into politics in late 2006.
A follower of "liberation Theology," which focuses on Jesus Christ as the liberator of the oppressed, Lugo, 56, heads the leftwing opposition Patriotic Alliance for Change.
An admirer of socialist firebrands Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Lugo champions the rights of the poor.
Business leaders view him as a dangerous leftwinger likely to implement policies similar to those of Chavez, who has taken a strongly protectionist stance in Venezuela and nationalized several industries.
Church authorities have branded him a rebel and "a dagger thrust in the Church's body."
Two days before Sunday's election, Lugo said that if elected he would steer Paraguay clear of the region's pervasive ideological "polarization," including the different currents of leftwing politics.
"Many of us have been using the term 'left' in Latin America. When five people meet, if they talk about the left there'll be five different concepts of what that means. We will mark out our own path," he said.
His victory ended the Colorado Party's 61-year hold on power, including 35 years under dictator Alfredo Stroessner from 1954-1989.
Salt-and-pepper hair and beard, Lugo peers from behind metal-rimmed glasses and has an easy smile betraying his humble origins in 1951 in the town of San Solano, in southern Itapua region.
The youngest of seven children, Lugo joined a seminary in 1970 and was ordained a priest in 1977, rising to bishop emeritus three years ago in the San Pedro diocese, Paraguay's poorest region.
The nephew of a Colorado Party leader who went into exile under Stroessner, Lugo went into politics in March 2006 when he organized a 40,000-strong protest against outgoing conservative President Nicanor Duarte.
The protest's success and pressure from fellow opposition leaders convinced Lugo to abandon the Church, which refused to accept his resignation but suspended him "a divinis," meaning he cannot officiate any religious function such as mass.
Lugo consolidated his leftist coalition bringing together some 20 minority political groups and movements under the Patriotic Alliance for Change.
"We want to be a country open to the world and to the great challenges of modern times, and that's the job we have to tackle after Sunday," Lugo told his followers at party headquarters before the vote.
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04/21/2008 01:13 GMT