The presidential candidate of the conservative coalition that has governed Uruguay for the past five years conceded defeat on Sunday after a close run-off election even as the vote count continued.
Alvaro Delgado, the centre-right government’s candidate, told his supporters at his campaign headquarters that “with sadness, but without guilt, we can congratulate the winner”, referring to left-wing challenger Yamandu Orsi.
Mr Delgado’s concession, with more than 57% of official votes counted, ushers in Mr Orsi of the centre-left Broad Front as Uruguay’s new leader.
It spells an end to the short stint of the right-leaning government in Uruguay that, in 2020, with the election of Luis Lacalle Pou, had broken 15 years of rule by the Broad Front.
The Broad Front drew international acclaim over those years for overseeing the legalisation of abortion, same-sex marriage and the sale of marijuana.
“I called Yamandu Orsi to congratulate him as president-elect of our country,” current president Lacalle Pou wrote on social media platform X, adding he would “put myself at his service and begin the transition as soon as I deem it appropriate”.
As polls closed Sunday evening, voter turnout stood at 89.4% — around the same as during the first round last month in which Mr Delgado and Mr Orsi failed to win an outright majority.
Voting in Uruguay is compulsory, with over 2.7 million citizens eligible.
Independent polling firms conducting so-called quick counts — which are taken from small samples of ballots cast — put Mr Orsi, a working-class former history teacher and two-time mayor, in the lead with about 49% of the vote.
Mr Delgado, a rural veterinarian with a long career in the centre-right National Party, trailed him with about 46%. It did not say why the two numbers did not total 100%.
A win for Mr Orsi makes the small South American nation the latest country to rebuke an incumbent party in this landmark election year where voters frustrated with post-pandemic economic malaise have punished ruling parties around the world, from the United States and Britain to South Korea and Japan.
But unlike elsewhere in the world, Mr Orsi is a moderate who plans no radical changes and agrees with his opponent on key issues like combating childhood poverty and cracking down on organised crime.
Despite his promise to lead a “new left” in Uruguay, his platform resembles the mix of market-friendly policies and welfare programs that characterised the Broad Front’s 15-year rule before the 2019 election.
He proposes tax incentives to lure investment and 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 October, with Uruguayans rejecting generous pensions in favour of fiscal constraint.
“He’s my candidate, not only for my sake but also for my children’s,” Yeny Varone, a nurse at a polling station, said of Mr Orsi. “In the future, they’ll have better working conditions, health and salaries.”
