In Ecuador, 5 vie for lead to be president

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador -- Five candidates were fighting for the lead in Ecuador's presidential race Sunday, setting the stage for a second round in the closest election since democracy was restored in 1979, early results showed.

With 46 percent of the votes counted, Lucio Gutierrez, a cashiered army colonel who is an admirer of Fidel Castro and Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, took the lead with 18.79 percent of the votes.

He was followed by banana magnate Alvaro Noboa with 17.65 percent; moderate leftist Leon Roldos with 15.98 percent, former President Rodrigo Borja, a center-left social democrat, with 14.87 percent; and Xavier Neira, candidate of the right-wing Social Christians, with 13.15 percent.

Carlos Aguinaga, president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, announced the figures in a national television address and urged the nation to remain calm. He said many votes remained to be counted before a winner could be announced.

A runoff between the two top vote-getters takes place Nov. 24 if no candidate receives 50 percent.

In other elections . . .

MONTENEGRO: The pro-independence party of President Milo Djukanovic won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro on Sunday, according to unofficial results. With more than 90 percent of the ballots counted, Djukanovic's Democratic Party of Socialists won 39 seats in the 75-seat parliament, independent election monitors said.

The main opposition challenger, the Socialist People's party, which advocates a continuation of the Yugoslav federation between Montenegro and Serbia, won only 30 seats.

CUBA: Millions of Cubans went to the polls Sunday to choose new municipal officials -- the men and women charged with solving all manner of neighborhood problems, from lack of water to deteriorating buildings.

President Fidel Castro was among an estimated 8-million voters who cast ballots, choosing between two candidates in his former neighborhood of Vedado.

Castro said the elections are important because about half the municipal delegates will later be candidates for seats on the National Assembly, or unicameral parliament. A date for the parliamentary elections has not been set, but they are expected early next year.

GREECE: Athens' voters on Sunday chose their first woman mayor, a former culture minister who has promised to showcase the city's ancient heritage for the 2004 Olympics.

Dora Bakoyianni was among the conservatives making impressive gains in municipal elections they presented as a referendum against the ruling Socialists, who have been in power 18 of the past 21 years.

Bakoyianni of the New Democracy party won 61 percent of the vote in Athens, with more than three-quarters of ballots counted. Her Socialist opponent, former maritime minister Christos Papoutsis, conceded.

Sunday's poll was a runoff after hundreds of candidates failed to win outright in a first round held Oct. 13. More than 1,000 mayors and 52 regional governors were elected in the two rounds.

HUNGARY: Hungary's Socialist-led government scored major gains in municipal elections Sunday, improving on its showing in April's parliamentary elections.

Preliminary results gave the Socialist Party and its liberal ally, the Alliance of Free Democrats, 48 percent of the vote for the Budapest and county assemblies, while the conservative opposition parties gained 33 percent.

In April's parliamentary elections, the Socialists and Free Democrats scraped together a majority of only 10 seats in the 386-seat national assembly.

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