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Polling stations opened this Sunday in Uruguay for the second round of the presidential elections in which the Frente Amplio candidate is participating, Yamandu Orsi, and a candidate from the ruling National Party, Alvaro Delgado.

One of the first to cast his ballot at the polls was the former president of Uruguay. Jose Mujica, who arrived ten minutes before his polling station opened, around 8:00 a.m. (local time), according to the newspaper. Country.

Voting is compulsory in Uruguay.Thus, if a citizen does not come to place his ballot in the ballot box, he will be subject to a fine from the election authority. Polling stations will be open until 19:30 (local time) on the day when 2.7 million people will be called to vote.

According to the main polls, the presidential ticket of Orsi and his vice-presidential candidate Caroline Causset, He has about 48 percent of voting intentions, several points ahead of Delgado and his number two candidate Valeria Ripoll, who have more than 46 percent support. According to these data, the election will be decided by the remaining 6 percent of those undecided.

The question now is whether the National Party, also known as the White Party, capable of uniting the voices of other political entities, as has happened in the past. In 2019, most anti-Broad Front factions coalesced around the Republican Coalition, also known as the Coalition of Many Colors, to avoid the formation of a progressive government.

Then the question arises: Delgado will receive the support of the majority of voters from the Partido Colorado, the Cabildo Aberto or the Constitutional Party of the Environmentalists, all of them are formations of the right or extreme right of the political spectrum and take positions openly opposed to those of the Amplio Front, which has almost no support from other parties.

Orsi and Delgado were the two most voted candidates in the first round. presidential elections on October 27. In this election, Orsi’s “broad front” received 43.85 percent of the votes, compared to 26.82 percent received by the “white” candidate, who actually has a fairly large reserve of votes thanks to the support of the rest of the parties of the Multicolor Coalition. .

This first round took place in parallel with parliamentary elections, this allowed the Amplio Front to reach the negotiating table, having won a majority in the Senate and being just one deputy away from winning a majority also in the Lower House, where it now needs to reach an agreement to take over the government.

Orsi is a prominent leader of the Popular Participation Movement (MPM), led by the historical former President Mujica and integrated into the Amplio Front coalition. served as head of the government of the province of Canelones.in southern Uruguay, from 2015 to 2024. Her vice-presidential candidate served as mayor of Montevideo between 2020 and July 2024, and previously served as Uruguay’s Minister of Industry, Energy and Mines from 2015 to 2019 during the government of Tabare Vázquez.

Among his main promises stands out reforming the tax system by reducing VAT, but also gradually increase taxes on high incomes and large assets. “Let those with more wealth and income pay more, easing the tax burden for those with less,” Orsi and Causset said in their campaign platform.

On the other side, The Amplio Front is committed to a “national education pact” which, although not going into depth, will aim to promote a new reform of current legislation to meet the demands of educational unions who are very critical of the current curriculum at national level.

In addition, he advocates an economic competitiveness plan accompanied by government intervention in creation of the National Development Strategy, an initiative through which long-term investments, research and development projects can be planned.

During his latest campaign event on Wednesday, Orsi called for smart voting, emphasizing that “Either Uruguay grows along with everyone else, or it will not move forward”; At the same time, he criticized Lacalla Pou for promising that his mandate would “be the five best years” in the lives of Uruguayans, which did not happen for the progressive leader.

Meanwhile, Causset took the opportunity to praise the history of the Amplio Front. and the successes of his previous governments, where he demonstrated his ability to “build bridges.” “Frente Amplio knows how to implement a policy of great agreements, because great agreements are made with the whole society, and that is why, when it is our turn to be a government, we deploy plans for the whole society,” he praised.

For its part, the National Party faced an obligation to replace its candidate. After five years of Lacala Pou’s reign because the Constitution expressly prohibits the direct re-election of presidents.

The Whites chose Delgado his current secretary to the president as a candidate along with Ripoll, a well-known television personality who was previously associated with the trade union sector. Delgado’s goal is to retain the presidency of the National Party after the resignation of its former leader Pablo Iturralde, having learned of the alleged pressure on the prosecutor’s office in connection with the senator’s corruption case.

Delgado and Ripoll promised that, within the framework of their mandate, taxes will not be increased, noting that Uruguay is already under severe financial pressure and they are targeting public sector spending cuts, including wage costs.

Regarding MERCOSUR, They propose to follow in the footsteps of Lacala Pou. and insist on the need to modernize the bloc by removing trade barriers and taking the necessary steps to reach agreements with the European Union, Japan or Canada, among others.

Delgado took advantage of his last campaign event to stand in front of the Montevideo Obelisk convey a message of calm and continuityalthough he did not set aside his commitment to continue to promote and promote new policies. “People don’t just vote on what we’ve done, people vote on what we’re going to do,” Delgado added.

“People decided to change in 2019, and we changed. “He decided to change because there was a Broad Front with a plaster arm that had exhausted its model (…) Now we also understand the message, which is that the coalition is the project that gets the most votes in Uruguay every time, and that we are on the path to national unity,” said the “white” leader.

(Europe Press)