Uruguay’s left-wing politician Yamandu Orsi won the presidential election, official results showed Sunday, ending five years of conservative leadership.
The country went to the polls for the second round of voting in what became a tight race between Orsi, of the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) alliance and Alvaro Delgado of the National Party, a member of outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou’s center-right Republican Coalition.
Orsi promised in a victory speech Sunday evening to be a president “who calls again and again for national dialogue to find the best solutions.”
Delgado meanwhile conceded defeat, saying he was sending “a big hug and a greeting to Yamandu Orsi.”
Though the election will shift the balance of power in Uruguay, analysts did not foresee a massive change in the country’s economic direction, with Orsi having previously promised “change that will not be radical.”
Both candidates pledged to fight crime linked to drug trafficking and to boost economic growth, which is recovering from the slowdown brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and a historic drought.
Orsi won 1,196,798 votes compared to Delgado’s 1,101,296, the country’s Electoral Court said – 49.8% to 45.9%.
Cheers broke out in the capital Montevideo, a bastion of Frente Amplio support, when projections showing Orsi in the lead were announced.
His campaign was boosted by support from Jose “Pepe” Mujica, a former guerrilla lionized as “the world’s poorest president” because of his modest lifestyle during his 2010-2015 time in office.
Orsi, seen as an understudy of Mujica, had garnered 43.9% of the October 27 first-round vote – short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff but ahead of the 26.7% of ballots cast for Delgado.
The pair came out on top of a crowded field of 11 candidates seeking to replace Lacalle Pou, who has a high approval rating but is barred constitutionally from seeking a second consecutive term.
Following the October legislative elections, Orsi will govern with a majority in the Senate, though the Frente Amplio is in the minority in the Chamber of Representatives.
‘Very different world’
Orsi’s victory will see Uruguay swing left again after five years of center-right rule in the country of 3.4 million inhabitants.
In 2005, the Frente Amplio coalition broke a decadeslong conservative stranglehold with an election victory and held the presidency for three straight terms.
It was voted out in 2020 on the back of concerns about rising crime blamed on high taxes and a surge in cocaine trafficking through the port of Montevideo.
Polling numbers ahead of the vote showed that perceived insecurity remains Uruguayans’ top concern five years later.
A 72-year-old retiree who voted, Juan Antonio Stivan, said he just wanted the next government to guarantee “safety – to be able to go out in the street with peace of mind, as an old person, as a young person, as a child.”
Congratulations rolled in from across Latin America, including from Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Chile’s Gabriel Boric.
“This is a victory for all of Latin America and the Caribbean,” Lula said on X.
Outgoing leader Pou said on social media that he called Orsi “to place myself at his disposal to begin the transition as soon as I think it is appropriate.”
Uruguay’s former President Jose Mujica casts his vote for a presidential election run-off at a polling station in Montevideo, Uruguay, Nov. 24, 2024. (Reuters Photo)
Voting is compulsory in Uruguay, one of Latin America’s most stable democracies, with comparatively high per-capita income and low poverty levels.
During the heyday of leftist rule, Uruguay legalized abortion and same-sex marriage, became the first Latin American country to ban smoking in public places and the world’s first nation, in 2013, to allow recreational cannabis use.
Former President Mujica, who is battling cancer and had to use a cane to walk into his polling station to vote, said Sunday: “Personally, I have nothing more to look forward to. My closest future is the cemetery, for reasons of age.
“But I am interested in the fate of you, the young people who, when they are my age, will live in a very different world.”
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