Uruguay second round elections: Voters will choose between left and right bloc | Election News

The left-wing alliance with which famous former President Jose Mujica hopes to return to power after five years of right-wing government.

Voting is underway in Uruguay’s second round of presidential elections, with the leftist alliance of famed former President Jose “Pepe” Mujica hoping to return to power after five years of right-wing government at the head of the Latin American nation.

Ballot boxes opened at 8 am (11:00 GMT) and closed at 19:30 pm (22:30 GMT); The first results are expected in two hours.

People in the small country of 3.4 million people must choose between leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) candidate Yamandu Orsi and the National Party’s Alvaro Delgado, a member of outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou’s center-right Republican Coalition.

Latest polls have shown the runoff will be very tight, with the frontrunners by less than 25,000 votes potentially leaving.

Unlike the sharp left-right divisions in recent elections in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, Uruguay’s political arena is relatively tension-free; Significant overlap between conservative and liberal coalitions vying for power eases some of the sting of Sunday’s final results.

Although President Luis Lacalle Pou has a 50 percent approval rating, the ruling conservative coalition has struggled to defend his record on crime despite presiding over rising employment and wages.

Orsi, who has promised a “modern left” policy approach, won 43.9 percent of the October vote for the Broad Front and will face Delgado, who won 26.8 percent but also has the support of the conservative Colorado Party along with his National Party. received almost 42 percent of the vote. The two parties won the election by doing the same in 2019.

No new commitments

Orsi sought to reassure Uruguayans that he was not planning a sharp policy change in the traditionally moderate and relatively wealthy country.

Delgado, meanwhile, asked voters to “re-elect a good government” in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of President Lacalle Pou, who constitutionally cannot run for immediate re-election.

No coalition has an absolute majority in the lower house after the first round of elections in October. However, Orsi’s Broad Front won 16 out of 30 seats in the Senate. He argues that a Senate majority puts him in a better position to lead the next government.

Both candidates hope to attract about 8 percent of first-round voters who went to smaller, nonpartisan parties and those who did not turn out in October. But neither has made any new promises to appeal to them in recent weeks, and pollsters say last week’s televised debate made little impact.

“I don’t know who I’m voting for,” said Rosario Gusque, 42, from the Canelones district, where Orsi was previously mayor. “After seeing the discussion, it got even less.”

As the biggest election year in history draws to a close, one question is whether Uruguay will overcome the global trend of incumbent parties losing votes compared to the previous election. Hurt by inflation and high costs of living, voters punished ruling parties, including those in Britain, Japan and the United States.