Paraguay president will not seek re-election

ASUNCION, May 7 (Reuters) - Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte said on Monday he has dropped a bid to run for reelection next year and will back the country's first female presidential candidate.

Duarte said in a televised interview he will no longer seek a constitutional reform that would have allowed him to serve two consecutive terms and he will support the candidacy of his education minister, Blanca Ovelar.

Referring to his own party, Duarte said: "From the Colorado Party's perspective, this chapter of the constitutional amendment and reelection is closed."

The Colorado Party has governed landlocked Paraguay for the past 60 years, counting the nearly 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.

Ovelar, a 49-year-old trained psychologist, has served as education minister since 2002.

"Blanca is an excellent candidate and I think her candidacy will position the Colorado Party as a political group that makes a big leap toward modernity, leaving behind 200 years of excluding women," Duarte told the Telefuturo channel.

An opinion poll published by the Ultima Hora newspaper on Friday showed Ovelar had a positive image among 37 percent of voters, who viewed her as honest and hard-working.

But before running in the April 2008 presidential race, Ovelar will have to beat Vice President Luis Castiglioni in the Colorado Party's primary election in December.

According to an Ultima Hora poll published on Sunday, two-thirds of Colorado Party members prefer Castiglioni to Ovelar.

The ruling party's main rival in next year's election is a former Roman Catholic bishop, Fernando Lugo, whom polls show could draw about 40 percent of voter support as leader of an opposition coalition.