Breaking a 170 year electoral pattern of the two main parties in Uruguay, the Centrist and Colorado parties, 64 year old former doctor and leftist mayor of Montevideo, Tabare Vazquez, was elected President of Venezuela, the first candidate from his leftist Frente Amplio party, an umbrella for the social democrats, communists and Tupamaro rebels. His platform was on moderate economic policies and focusing on better distribution of wealth, as well as improving relations with Argentina, Venezuela, and Cuba. Vazquez’s victory was granted after the economic crisis of 2002 as a result of the devaluation of currency in nearby Argentina where several banks had collapsed and left one third of Uruguayans before the poverty line.