Uruguayans vote for new president

Uruguayans voted yesterday with the leftist alliance of celebrated ex-president Jose "Pepe” Mujica hoping to reclaim the country’s top job five years after a right-wing victory driven by concerns over crime and taxes.Former history teacher Yamandu Orsi of the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) is going head-to-head with ex-veterinarian Alvaro Delgado of the National Party, a member of outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou’s centre-right Republican Coalition."As long as things improve here in Uruguay and it stays afloat, that’s enough for me,” said one voter, 34-year-old meat industry worker Nicolas Clavijo.Orsi, 57, is seen as the understudy of 89-year-old Mujica, a former guerrilla lionised as "the world’s poorest president” during his 2010-2015 rule because of his modest lifestyle.Orsi had garnered 43.9% of the October 27 first-round vote – short of the 50% cutoff to avoid a runoff but ahead of the 26.7% of ballots cast for Delgado, 55.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.Ahead of yesterday’s election, opinion polls suggested the runoff promised to be razor tight, with fewer than 25,000 votes potentially separating the two contenders, and Orsi only marginally ahead in stated voter intention in South America’s second-smallest country.Although Clavijo voted for the Frente Amplio, he said "both (coalitions) have good and bad proposals”.Mujica, who is battling cancer and had to use a cane to walk into his polling station to vote, said yesterday: "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,” he added.A smiling Orsi cast his ballot in the rural Canelones region, to applause from supporters.Delgado shook hands with polling station officials as he cast his vote in Montevideo.Other parties within the Republican Coalition have thrown their support behind Delgado since the first round, boosting his numbers.A victory for Orsi would see Uruguay swing left again after five years of centre-right rule in the country of 3.4mn inhabitants.The Frente Amplio coalition broke a decades-long conservative stranglehold with an election victory in 2005, 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 show 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”.Another voter, Aldo Soroara, 60, said he expected whoever is elected as president to do "the best he can for the people”, adding: "You can’t ask for much more in these difficult times.”Voting is compulsory in Uruguay, one of Latin America’s most stable democracies, with comparatively high per-capita income and low poverty levels.Neither coalition has an absolute majority in the lower house following October’s elections.However, Orsi’s Broad Front won 16 of 30 Senate seats.He says that his Senate majority puts him in a better position to lead the next government.