14 Dec 2008 23:45:01 GMT

Source: Reuters

MONTEVIDEO, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Uruguay’s ruling left-wing coalition on Sunday chose a former guerrilla leader as its official candidate for next year’s presidential election, but also decided he will face a primary. Jose Mujica, 74, who led the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement behind bombings and kidnappings in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was jailed during Uruguay’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship, has softened his image in recent years and is now a senator. His candidacy was backed by over 70 percent of around 2,400 delegates of the ruling Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition at a meeting on Sunday. “Together we can win,” Mujica, who is seen as a hard-line leftist within the coalition, told the gathering. Center-left President Tabare Vazquez, who became Uruguay’s first socialist leader in 2005 in another shift to the left in Latin American politics, cannot run for a consecutive term. Mujica could face former economy minister Danilo Astori, a moderate within the coalition who has been criticized for promoting closer ties with the United States, in June’s primary in the beef-exporting South American country bordering Argentina and Brazil. Astori won the backing of nearly 24 percent of the coalition’s delegates. The presidential election is due in October, and the ruling coalition faces a challenge from a cluster of opposition center-right parties, who between them currently muster more support, according to a recent poll. (Reporting by Conrado Hornos. Writing by Simon Gardner, Editing by Jackie Frank)