Left-wing candidate Yamandu Orsi from the Broad Front coalition is running with victory in Sunday’s second round of the presidential election in Uruguay.
This is shown by the official vote counts, with 97 percent of the votes counted.
Orsi stands to get the support of 49.7 percent of voters, while the conservative candidate, Alvaro Delgado, stands to get 45.9 percent of the vote.
In a speech to his supporters, Alvaro Delgado acknowledged the election defeat on Monday night.
– It is one thing to lose the election, and it is another thing to be defeated. We have not been defeated, says Delgado.
– Today we can congratulate whoever won, whoever the majority stood behind, and we will do that with sincerity, he adds.
The country’s current president, Luis Lacalle Pou, has congratulated Orsi on the victory in a telephone call.
Like Delgado, Lacalle Pou comes from the National Party. He was elected as the President of Uruguay in the 2019 elections.
The president of Uruguay is both the country’s head of state and head of government.
The person concerned is elected for five years at a time and cannot stand again immediately after his term of office.
Thus it was the 55-year-old Delgado who had to take on Orsi from the left-wing coalition Bred Front.
Bred Front has previously been in power in Uruguay. The party did this most recently from 2005 to 2020.
Polling stations in the South American country closed at 19:30 local time.
Polls had predicted before Sunday’s election that it would be a close race between Orsi and Delgado.
During the election campaign, topics such as the rising cost of living, inequality and dangerous crime interested Uruguayans.
In recent times, inflation in the country has been decreasing, while employment and real wages have been increasing.
About 3.4 million people live in the small South American country.
/ritzau/Reuters
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
