I’m going to try to get back in the blogging habit by translating at least one newspaper article or blog post a day from Spanish into English. We’ll see how long it lasts. From today’s La Nación, here are reactions by various Latin American presidents to the victory of ex-bishop, Fernando Lugo in Uruguay’s Sunday presidential election. It was the first time that a candidate from an opposition party won in over 60 years.

Lula da Silva – Brazil:

“Democracy won in Paraguay; there was a change, and if it was for the will of the people, I respect it.”

Evo Morales – Bolivia:

“We greet the triumph of Lugo. He is a revolutionary who has joined the fight of the people.”

Cristina Kirchner – Argentina:

“I am convinced that, with his hand, Paraguay will take the road of social justice.”

Rafael Correa – Ecuador:

“It is one more building block for a new just, fair, independent, and socialist Latin America.”

Hugo Chavez – Venezuela:

“I spoke [with Lugo] to congratulate him for his victory and praise the political maturity of the Paraguayans.”

Missing from La Nación’s roundup of South American presidential reactions were Michelle Bachelet, a fellow leftist who was supposed to shake up traditional politics in Chile, Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe who is now as South America’s only non-leftist head of state, and neighboring Uruguay’s Tabare Vasquez, another centrist-leftist. Unlike Morales and Correo, Lugo has yet to make any polemicist declarations against the United States or in support of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution.

Eddie has a useful round-up of blogger reactions to Lugo’s victory on Global Voices. Boz has his patented five points.