By TONY SMITH

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay, April 27 — Paraguayans appeared today to be well on the way to putting their corruption-blighted country back in the hands of the
Colorado Party, extending its rule, unbroken since 1947, for another five years.

With just over 80 percent of votes counted, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, a former journalist and education minister, was leading with 37.6 percent. Julio César Franco of the
Liberal Party was second with 23.3 percent, just ahead of the 22.4 percent of ballots cast for Pedro Fadul, a successful businessman and newcomer to politics at the head
of pro-reform, grass-roots movement Beloved Homeland.

With government corruption rife and the economy sliding deeper into crisis, opposition parties had viewed this election as their best chance of unseating the Colorados
since the former dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner was ousted in 1989 after 35 years of rule.

They had hoped to emulate their neighbors Brazil and Argentina. Last year, Brazilians elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the country's first working-class president,
while Argentines forced out an ineffective president through street protests in late 2001.

But Mr. Duarte Frutos campaigned cleverly, playing on people's fears of rising crime and on nostalgia for the Stroessner days when Asunción was so safe and sleepy that
residents did not need to lock their houses or cars.

He also called on the Colorados' political machine, which pervades nearly all sectors of Paraguayan society, controlling state sector jobs and supplying rural communities
with many of their needs.

Mr. Duarte Frutos promised repeatedly throughout the campaign to crack down on corruption, and in a victory speech minutes after the surveys of voters leaving the polls
were published, he promised "an efficient government for all and an end to the administration of the unscrupulous."

"There will be no place for people who believe the party and state are there to be abused to the detriment of the country," he said.

Nevertheless, many Paraguayans did not believe that Mr. Duarte Frutos, 56, was willing, or able, to break with the Colorados' corrupt past.

That corruption and impunity was symbolized for many by the incumbent president, Luis Gonzáles Macchi, who last year was found to be driving a stolen BMW and
narrowly survived impeachment after being accused of mishandling $16 million in state money.

"In truth, nothing will change because it will be all the same people,' said Fernando Fernández, a 24-year-old medical student voting in downtown Asunción.

"I'm not expecting any big changes," said Nicolás Arguello, host of "And So Life Goes On," a popular radio show where listeners phone in with their problems or to offer
help to the needy.

After six years of economic decline, Paraguayans' average income has fallen from $1,700 a year to just over $900, while unemployment is estimated to be as high as 35
percent. About a third of the country's six million people live in poverty.

Mr. Macchi and his political allies are just the latest in a series of politicians who have ruled Paraguay as if it were their personal fief. Many of them are still linked to the
Colorados, and Mr. Duarte Frutos will have to challenge them if he wants to create change.

"He will be under immense pressure from the powerful vested interests of the past," said Andrew Nixon, a Paraguay expert who teaches at Britain's Birmingham
University.

Mr. Duarte Frutos said today that he would soon form a transitional cabinet and promised that "not a flea will move without our shadow cabinet knowing of it."

Most urgently, Mr. Duarte Frutos must try to revive the economy. He said he would send a delegation to Washington as early as next week to negotiate fresh financing
from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for public works programs.

There, however, he might be disappointed.

Officials at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are still smarting at the Colorados' refusals in the past to privatize Paraguay's telephone and water
companies and to push through reforms in the financial sector. Those refusals effectively torpedoed two separate assistance packages from the fund.

"The rift with the World Bank and I.M.F. is quite profound," Mr. Nixon said. "If Nicanor thinks he can go to Washington next week and simply get cash for a highway
project," he said referring to Mr. Duarte Frutos, "I think he's got a big shock coming to him."