Reuters has the first report here. The lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key candidate won over the bring-back-the-death-penalty candidate from the incumbent party. This is considered a suprise upset for the challenger who is said to be slightly more left-leaning, though I am curious about the name of his party ‘Liberal’ – which, internationally, means Libertarian. More to follow…

UPDATE: A bit more from Boz here.

UPDATE: Boz has a good roundup of the event here. And this interesting commentary here:

After independence in the 19th century, most Latin American countries ended up with a two party political system. The two parties were nearly always the “Liberals” and the “Conservatives” and the main differences dealt with the how the nation worked with Europe and the role of the Church in the country. Not really an economic or a social divide as we would see today’s right and left (and because of who was eligible to vote, both parties represented a rather elite group of people).

Over time, some of the countries retained the party names and labels through simple political intertia, but the parties evolved in all sorts of different directions. In the same way the “Republican” and “Democratic” parties here mean something completely different today than they did in 1860 (or for that matter, 1960), the party ideologies have evolved on a country by country basis in Latin America.

The Liberal Parties in Honduras and Colombia are center-left (although they are both far from the radical left); the Liberal Party in Nicaragua is quite conservative in my opinion. Using the “Liberal” or “Conservative” label in those countries is more of a statement of historical value than it is a statement about left or right.