RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After an electrifying election night and an unprecedentedly close result, the Electoral Court will have to conduct a detailed counting of votes to announce the winner of the Uruguayan presidential election.
With 99 percent of the votes counted at 0:30 PM on Monday, the result signaled a technical tie, with a small advantage for right-wing coalition leader Luis Lacalle Pou, who was just 1.3 points ahead of his Frente Amplio (Broad Front) rival Daniel Martinez.
The margin is so narrow that a recount is needed to determine the winner. The final official tally hinges on the “observed” votes, i.e. those cast by voters away from their normal polling station.
The number of these votes slightly exceeds the gap between Lacalle Pou and Daniel Martinez. According to the Uruguayan edition of El País, the final result is not expected before Thursday or Friday.
There has been an entirely unexpected turn of events in the past 48 hours. All the polls carried out before the elections pointed to a victory margin for Lacalle Pou of between five and eight percent.
It is too early to look for reasons, but early speculations point to a hidden vote in favor of the left-wing and the potential adverse impact of a video of General Manini Ríos, who breached electoral rules by urging soldiers to vote against the Broad Front to set the stage for his conservative partners.
Another factor pointed out is the mobilization of Uruguayans from abroad, who traveled in large numbers to vote this Sunday.
In any event, celebrations were interrupted at the headquarters of the National Party, and the whole country is waiting for the official results. Both candidates have called on their supporters to remain calm while they await the official announcement.
Although the results are still unclear, it seems that the Broad Front has not captured enough voters to ensure its victory, after leading in the first round of elections held on October 27th. Despite better than expected results last night, the left-wing group has lost many voters since the 2014 elections, winning three consecutive parliamentary majorities in the run-up to the elections.
The building of a coalition around the National Party (PN) leader, Luis Lacalle Pou, seemed to be the determining factor for the political turnaround in Uruguay. After garnering 28 percent of the votes in the first round, the PN managed to add another traditional Uruguayan party to its coalition, the Colorado Party, with 12 percent of the vote, and the Open Cabildo (10 percent of the vote).
Retired General Manini Río, an Uruguayan version of Bolsonaro who defended the torturers of the Uruguayan dictatorship (1973-1984) and is openly homophobic and antifeminist, supported Lacalle Pou. The coalition also had the support of several small arch-conservative parties.
Luis Lacalle Pou, 46, is an experienced legislator. A deputy at the age of 20, he was a candidate for the National Party in 2014 in a presidential election that he lost to the current president, Tabaré Vázquez.
When voting on Sunday, Lacalle Pou said that should he win, he will not announce the names of his prospective ministers. Thus, one of the main questions of these elections will remain: the coordination and balance of power within the right-wing coalition.
Although there is a common program of the coalition parties, written right after the first round, questions still remain about the content of these measures.
Lacalle Pou and his partners’ ambition is to reverse a number of Broad Front policies on key issues such as economics, education, citizen security or social policies.
However, the coalition has pointed that it will not overturn the so-called “rights agenda” implemented by the left, which includes laws such as the decriminalization of abortion, gay marriage and the protection of transgender people.