Yamandú Orsi of Uruguay’s center-left Frente Amplio (“Broad Front”) coalition was elected the nation’s third leftist president ever in Sunday’s runoff election, defeating Álvaro Delgado of the incumbent center-right Republican Coalition.
Orsi, a 57-year-old history teacher and former mayor of the city of Canelones, will succeed outgoing center-right President Luis Lacalle Pou when his five-year term ends on March 1, 2025. While Uruguay’s constitution does not impose term limits, a president may not run for immediate reelection and must wait at least five years before being eligible to run again.
More than 2 million Uruguayan voters headed to the polls Sunday for a runoff election between Orsi and Delgado after no candidate crossed the required 50-percent-plus-one vote threshold to win in the October 27 first round. With 100 percent of the votes counted by shortly after midnight of Monday, Uruguay’s Electoral Court announced that Orsi obtained 49.84 percent of the votes against Delgado’s 45.86 percent.
“I will be the president who calls again and again for national dialogue, of course with our proposals, but listening,” Orsi told his sympathizers after his victory. “I will be the president who builds a more integrated country. Beyond the differences, nobody will be left behind from the economic, social and political point of view.”
Delgado conceded and congratulated Orsi shortly after the results were announced, stating to his followers that “one has to respect above all things the sovereign decision.”
“Today the people, the Uruguayans, defined who is going to exercise the Presidency of the Republic and I want to send from here (…) a strong hug and a greeting to Yamandú Orsi and to the Broad Front,” Delgado said.
“I always said that the path we chose to win was the one that validated us later to go for agreements and we acted accordingly. That is why today, without a guilt complex, with sadness of course, but without a guilt complex, we can congratulate who won, who had the preference, and do it with sincerity and from the heart, with detachment and with a very republican sense,” he added.
Outgoing President Lacalle Pou also congratulated Orsi in a phone call and announced on social media that he would “put myself at his service and begin the transition as soon as I deem it appropriate.”
During his presidential campaign, Orsi described his policies as “modern left” and vowed to tackle homelessness, poverty, and insecurity as some of his top issues. In October, Orsi told Reuters that, should he be elected, his administration would not raise taxes.
Some of his other main policies reportedly include changes to social security to allow individuals to retire at 60 years of age, reinforcing public security by hiring 2,000 new police officers and installing 20,000 more surveillance cameras, changes to allow “fast track” reforms to promote public transportation for Montevideo’s metropolitan area, the environment, and “social inclusion,” among other policies and issues.
The Uruguayan president-elect has also been described as an “heir” to socialist former President José Mujica, who granted Orsi his endorsement. Orsi’s running mate, Vice President-elect Carolina Cosse, was the center of a controversy in 2018 when she asserted in a local media interview that the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes “were not dictatorships” at a time when she was a candidate for the 2019 Uruguayan presidential primaries.
Orsi’s victory makes him both Uruguay’s third leftist president ever and a representation of the return to power of the center-left Broad Front after the 15-year consecutive terms of Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010), José Mujica (2010-2015), and Vázquez’s second term (2015-2020). Unlike the two previous leftist presidents, the Broad Front will have full control of the Uruguayan Congress during the upcoming five-year term.
While the center-left coalition obtained 16 of the 30 Senate seats during the October general election, securing a majority in the upper chamber, no party or coalition was able to attain a majority in the Chamber of Representatives, which will force the incoming administration’s lawmakers to negotiate with legislators outside its bloc to approve proposals.
Lacalle Pou, who will leave office in a little over three months, stated on Sunday that he will remain “close to the people” after being elected Senator in October’s general elections.
“In 97 days I will be close to the people, I will be involved in political activity and I will be where people think best. I am an elected senator, so that is where I should be,” Lacalle Pou told reporters after casting his vote on Sunday.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.