Election in Uruguay turns into deadlock in presidential runoff

Uruguayans will return to the polls on Sunday for a second round of voting to elect the next president; The conservative ruling party and the left-leaning coalition are locked in a close runoff after falling short of an outright majority in last month’s vote.

The election turned into a tight race between the incumbent party’s candidate, Álvaro Delgado, and Yamandú Orsi of the Broad Front, a coalition of left and center-left parties that remained in power for 15 years until the center-right President’s 2019 victory. Luis Lacalle Pou. He oversaw the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage and marijuana sales in this small South American country.

Orsi’s Broad Front received 44 percent of the vote, while Delgado’s National Party received only 27 percent in the first round of voting on October 27. But the other conservative parties that make up the governing coalition, especially the Colorado Party, received 20 percent of the vote. The total percentage of votes is enough to give Delgado the edge over his opponent this time.

Congress was evenly split in the October elections. Most polls show a virtual tie between Delgado and Orsi; Almost 10 percent of Uruguayan voters are undecided even at this late stage.

Analysts said the candidates’ lackluster campaigns and lack of consensus on key issues helped fuel extraordinary voter hesitancy and apathy in an election dominated by debates over taxes and social spending but largely free of the anti-establishment anger that has brought populist outsiders to power elsewhere.

“The question of whether the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) should raise taxes is not an existential question, unlike what we see in the United States with Trump and Kamala framing each other as threats to democracy,” Latin America and Caribbean senior Nicolás Saldías said. He is an analyst for the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit. “Uruguay doesn’t have that.”

Both candidates are appealing to voters’ concern over a rise in violent crime that has shaken a country long considered one of the safest and most stable in the region.