MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – A blunt-talking former guerrilla seeking to NFL jerseys maintain the left's hold on power in Uruguay easily got the most votes in presidential elections Sunday, but failed to win the majority needed to avoid a runoff. Jose "Pepe" Mujica got about 48 percent of the votes compared to 30 percent for former president Luis Alberto LaCalle, a free-marketeer who wants to cut government and taxes and reduce alliances with Latin American leftists. Two voter initiatives — one to remove amnesty for human rights abuses under the Rolex watches 1973-85 dictatorship and another to enable mail-in votes by citizens living outside Uruguay — also failed to win majorities, according to exit polls by the companies Cifra, Factum and Equipos Mori. Mujica and his vice-presidential candidate, Danilo Astori, conceded that a runoff would be necessary but expressed optimism. They noted that even if Lacalle picks up all the votes of right-wing third-place finisher Pedro Bordaberry, Sunday's margin would still give the ruling Broad Front the edge in the second round of voting on Nov. 29. In many ways, Uruguayans were voting for their ugg boots visions of the past as well as the future. And while Mujica's life story — from armed revolutionary to someone trying to change the system from within — clearly resonated with some voters, it has repelled others. "He's more than a man. He's a mirror of ourselves — his sacrifice, his love, his errors," computer network installer Alejandro Carbonell said, a young son riding his shoulders and waving the ruling party's tricolor flag. "The whole world needs this: people who can help us save ourselves, and lose our fear." Mujica was a leader of the Tupamaru guerrillas, who were inspired by the Cuban revolution to organize kidnappings, bombings, robberies and other attacks on the conservative but democratically elected governments of the 1960s. Convicted of killing a policeman in 1971, he endured torture and Seattle Seahawks jerseys solitary confinement during nearly 15 years in prison. In the quarter-century since he was freed, Mujica helped transform the guerrillas into a legitimate political movement and the driving force within the leftist Broad Front coalition. He eventually became the top vote-getter in Congress and served as Vazquez's agriculture minister, developing a reputation for populist policies and impolitic commentary. Invoking an old man's right to say what he thinks, the 74-year-old Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jerseys relishes pointing out the pompous and hypocritical in blunt, working man's slang. That image — and his populist convictions — have some Uruguayans deeply concerned.