Uruguay closes the Latin American electoral calendar in a week. On Sunday the 27th, the first round of the presidential elections will be held with 11 candidates. If no one obtains an absolute majority – 50% plus one of the votes – the outcome will be postponed to the second round on November 24. Yamandu Orsiof the Wide Frontleads all polls and Alvaro Delgadoof the National Party, is the best positioned among its coalition partners in the current Government. Andres Ojedaof the Colorado Party, has grown in the polls, but its percentages would not be enough to displace the political dolphin of the current head of state, Luis Lacalle Pouin the very probable second round.
The elections will not only define the future president – the possibility of re-election is not possible in Uruguay – but they will also the entire Parliament will be renewed: the 30 senators and 99 deputies that make up it. Furthermore, in elections where voting is mandatory, two issues will be put to a plebiscite: a pension reform that promotes lower the retirement agepromoted by the PIT-CNT union center, and the attribution for the State to execute night raidsan initiative proposed by the conservative wing in the Government and that the Uruguayan constitution expressly prohibits.
Uruguay is, along with Suriname, the only Latin American country that does not allow consular voting.
The registry of this country has 2,766,323 voters, you must be over 18 years of age to participate in the elections and consular suffrage is not allowed –the vote that is cast at the headquarters of the country’s consulate–. Uruguay and Suriname are the only two Latin American states with this impediment. He Wide Front has been trying to modify this restriction for years, but has not yet been successful. He promoted a plebiscite in 2009 and lost it.
It is estimated that almost 600,000 Uruguayans live abroad and a large percentage of that number does so in Argentina. Many try to return to vote next sunday. In relation to the 2019 elections, there are 240,000 more people on the registry.
The four main pollsters, Cifra, Equipos, Opción and Factum, They give Orsi the winner in the first roundthe former mayor of Canelones. In two cases with 44%, one with 43% and the remaining with 42%. On average, all the consulting firms reflect a distance of 20 points over Delgado, who was also Secretary of the Presidency during the Lacalle Pou Government between 2020 and 2023. This is a president who distances himself in the middle of the corruption allegations against his Executive.
The National Party of Uruguay observes how the candidate Andrés Ojeda, of the Colorado Party, approaches from the right
The candidate with the most expected votes in the coalition made up of the far-right Cabildo Abierto and the Colorado, Independiente and De La Gente parties also has another problem. Delgado and the whites – as the members of the National Party are known – have observed how they are getting closer in the polls Ojeda’s candidacya young lawyer and regular TV panelist.
Among the partners of the liberal-conservative entente, the retired general Guido Manini Ríos It has considerably lowered its percentages now between 1% and 4% in the best of cases. In 2019 he had garnered 11% of the votes in the first round.
For the Frente Amplio, the objective to be met in this first round is to obtain the majority that would allow it dominate with more political back the General Assembly. Especially in the Senate – since the deputies are a more diverse composition of the chamber – where the leftist force today has thirteen seats. “October election fundamentally defines Parliament“Orsi stated in a recent interview.
Yamandú Orsi, of the Frente Amplio: “The October election fundamentally defines Parliament”
The scenario for the elections in seven days differs from the potential second round that would take place on November 24. Like five years ago, when the Front comfortably won the first round – its candidate Daniel Martínez beat Lacalle Pou by ten points – in the second round the right-wing forces united and allowed the current president to win in a very close vote.
But there is a difference that could be crucial in relation to 2019. Orsi, unlike Martínez, now has a difference of 20 points and not ten over the best positioned candidate of the National Party. And another key fact is that the Front is the only force that, on its own and without allies, grows in the second rounds.
The unit that makes up the Popular Participation Movement (MPP) of José Mujica, the Communist, Socialist, Christian Democratic and various expressions of the Uruguayan left that form the Front, is a force with territorial militancy throughout Uruguay that has about 500 grassroots committees. His participatory internal political life was demonstrated in the last elections where the Orsi-Cosse presidential formulawhich easily surpassed the whites in voters.
The main tension that it has endured in recent months is the call for a plebiscite to reform the regime of Social security. When it was confirmed that the collection of signatures had exceeded 10% of the electoral roll last July, the sectors of the Frente Amplio celebrated that they were promoting the change. This referendum is supported by the PIT-CNT, with its president at the head, the metallurgical leader Marcelo Abdalathe communists and socialists. On the other hand, the MPP, its own Pepe Mujica and other sectors grouped in Broad Front for Nothey spoke out against it.
Carolina Cosse, Orsi’s vice presidential candidate, expressed in dialogue with Page12: “We have a bad law now, a product of this Government that failed to fulfill campaign promises. The workers’ organization proposed a plebiscite modifying the constitution. In the Frente Amplio program there are some ideas that coincide with the content of the PIT ballot. CNT. For example, retirement at 60 yearsthat the savings pillar be non-profit and some other things.” In short, the Front’s militancy was left free to decide.
The other plebiscite devised by the allies of the coalition in the Government was called to modify article 11 of the magna cartawhich establishes: “The home is an inviolable sacred place. At night no one may enter it without the consent of his boss, and during the day, only with the express order of a competent judge, in writing and in cases determined by law.” The right intends to enable night raids, according to the white senator Carlos Camybecause “it is important that the Police and Justice have one more tool to make their task of combating crime, fundamentally drug trafficking and organized crime, more effective.”
Uruguayan history shows that only once was an issue submitted to a referendum approved. It was in 1989. Even 20 years later, in 2009, the possibility of ending the Expiry Law or so-called was rejected. Impunity Lawwhich prevented the trial of soldiers who committed crimes against humanity during the civil-military dictatorship. The norm was from 1986 and had only been voted on in the National Assembly with the support of whites and reds.
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