Uruguay’s conservative candidate concedes hard-fought presidential runoff to left-wing challenger

Uruguay’s leftist opposition candidate, Yamandu Orsi, claimed victory in a tight presidential runoff Sunday, ousting the conservative governing coalition and making the South American nation the latest to rebuke the incumbent party in a year of landmark elections.

Even as the vote count continued, Alvaro Delgado, the presidential candidate of the centre-right ruling coalition, conceded defeat to his challenger.

“With sadness, but without guilt, we can congratulate the winner,” he told supporters at his campaign headquarters in the capital of Montevideo

Fireworks erupted over the stage where Orsi, 57, a working-class former history teacher and two-time mayor from Uruguay’s Broad Front coalition, thanked his supporters as crowds flocked to greet him.

“The country of liberty, equality and fraternity has triumphed once again,” he said, vowing to unite the nation of 3.4 million people after such a tight vote.

“Let’s understand that there is another part of our country who have different feelings today,” he said. “These people will also have to help build a better country. We need them too.”

With nearly all the votes counted, electoral officials reported that Orsi won just over 49% of the vote, ahead of Delgado’s 46%. The rest cast blank votes or abstained in defiance of Uruguay’s enforced compulsory voting. Turnout reached almost 90%.

While failing to entice apathetic young voters, Uruguay’s lacklustre electoral campaigns steered clear of the anti-establishment fury that has vaulted populist outsiders to power elsewhere in the world, like in the United States and neighbouring Argentina.

After weeks in which the moderate rivals appeared tied in the polls, Delgado’s concession ushers in Orsi as Uruguay’s new leader and cuts short the centre-right Republican coalition’s shot at governing. The 2019 election of President Luis Lacalle Pou spelled an end to 15 consecutive years of rule by the Broad Front.

“I called Yamandu Orsi to congratulate him as President-elect of our country,” Lacalle Pou wrote on social media platform X, adding that he would “put myself at his service and begin the transition as soon as I deem it appropriate.”

Orsi’s victory was the latest sign that simmering discontent over post-pandemic economic malaise favours anti-incumbent candidates. In the many elections that took place during 2024, voters frustrated with the status quo have punished ruling parties from the U.S. and Britain to South Korea and Japan.

But unlike elsewhere in the world, Orsi is a moderate with no radical plans for change. He largely agrees with his opponent on key voter concerns like driving down the childhood poverty rate, now at a staggering 25%, and containing an upsurge in organized crime that has shaken the nation long considered among Latin America’s safest.

Despite Orsi’s promise to lead a “new left” in Uruguay, his platform resembles the mix of market-friendly policies and welfare programs that characterized the Broad Front’s tenure from 2005-2020.

The coalition of leftist and centre-left parties presided over a period of robust economic growth and pioneering social reforms that won widespread international acclaim.

The driving force behind Uruguay’s legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage and sale of marijuana a decade ago was former President Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-Marxist guerrilla who became a global icon and mentor to Orsi.

Mujica, now 89 and recovering from esophageal cancer, turned up at his local polling station before balloting even began on Sunday to praise Orsi’s humility and Uruguay’s proud stability.

“This is no small feat,” he said of his nation’s “citizenry that respects formal institutions.”

Specific proposals by Orsi include tax incentives to lure investment and revitalize the critical agricultural sector, as well as social security reforms that would lower the retirement age but fall short of a radical overhaul sought by Uruguay’s unions that failed to pass in the Oct. 27 general election during which neither front-runner secured an outright majority.

In keeping with the nation’s reputation for being sensible, voters rejected generous payouts and the redistribution of privately managed pension funds in favour of fiscal constraint.

He is also likely to scupper a trade agreement with China that Lacalle Pou had pursued to the chagrin of Mercosur, an alliance of South American nations promoting regional commerce.

“He’s my candidate, not only for my sake but also for my children’s,” said Yeny Varone, a nurse at a polling station who voted for Orsi.”In the future they’ll have better working conditions, health and salaries.”

Delgado, 55, a rural veterinarian with a long career in the National Party, served most recently as Secretary of the Presidency for Lacalle Pou and campaigned under the slogan “re-elect a good government.”

With inflation easing and the economy expected to expand by some 3.2% this year, Delgado has promised to continue pursuing his predecessor’s pro-business policies. Lacalle Pou, who constitutionally cannot run for a second consecutive term, has enjoyed high approval ratings.

But the official results trickling in Sunday showed that mounting complaints in Uruguay about years of sluggish economic growth, stagnant wages and the government’s struggle to contain crime after five years helped swing the election against Delgado.

Still, Orsi struck a conciliatory tone.

“I will be the president who calls for national dialogue again and again, who builds a more integrated society and country,” he said, adding that he would get to work immediately.

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll have to work very hard, there’s a lot to do,” he told The Associated Press from the glass-walled NH Columbia hotel, thronged friends and colleagues embracing and congratulating him.

The win after such the hard-fought race, he said, gave him a “a strange feeling that I think takes a while to come to terms with.”

His government will take office on March 1, 2025.