Center-right Uruguayan Candidate Rejects Bolsonaro’s Support in Second Round

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Uruguayan presidential candidate Luis Lacalle Pou rejected the support voiced by Jair Bolsonaro, who said in an interview this week to Estado de S. Paulo that he favors him in the second round run-off election, which will take place on November 24th.

Lacalle Pou, of the center-right Partido Nacional, said the governments of other countries should not interfere in local elections. On Thursday, the Uruguayan Chancellery called on the Brazilian ambassador to demand clarification on the Brazilian president’s statements “related to the electoral process that is taking place in our country.”

The voting will be decided between Lacalle Pou and Daniel Martínez, of the ruling left-wing Frente Ampla, a party that has been in power in the country since 2005. In an interview on Wednesday evening, Lacalle Pou said that “it is not appropriate to comment on elections in other countries”.

“If I were the president and there was an electoral process in Brazil, no matter how much I preferred one more than the other, I would wait for the results because I need to have a good relationship with the victor,” answered the candidate when asked about the Brazilian president’s support. “Luckily, in Uruguay, Brazilians don’t get to decide”.

In an interview with Estadão during his visit to the Middle East, Bolsonaro said that Uruguay “is the result of Pepe Mujica‘s policy” (former President who was elected senator) and there is currently “an opposition more in line with our liberal and economic mindset”.

“We hope for the election of someone closer to our team. Then Uruguay would have a greater affinity with us,” Bolsonaro said in the interview. “We didn’t have any issues with Uruguay in economic matters with the current president, but we always have to prepare for the worst”.

In turn, Lacalle Pou had already said he was “concerned” by Bolsonaro’s statements regarding a potential withdrawal of Brazil from Mercosur, even before the victory of Peronist Alberto Fernández in the presidential election in neighboring Argentina.

The 46-year-old candidate, who is a lawyer but has served as a deputy throughout his adult life, was virtually born into politics, as the great-grandson of Luis Alberto de Herrera, the party’s main reference for decades. His father is Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, president between 1990 and 1995, who lost the presidential elections to José Mujica in 2009.

In the following election, Lacalle Pou himself was a candidate and lost to the current president, Tabaré Vázquez, the first head of state of the Frente Ampla coalition, who is about to end his second non-consecutive term.

This time, however, analysts believe that the opposition has a greater chance since all the right-wing and center-right forces tend to support him. The Frente Ampla, which has been in power for 15 years, still benefits from great support as a result of social programs and the reduction of inequality and poverty. However, the slowdown in growth this year has led to an increase in the public deficit.

Partido Nacional candidate Lacalle Pou based his campaign on an “austerity shock,” with pledges to reduce the deficit by cutting unnecessary government spending.

Source: O Globo