Ola Uruguay Real Estate and Investments

The polls closed at 7:30 p.m. in Uruguay last Sunday night, but it was a full hour more before any announcement was allowed indicating the winner.

In a section of the Rambla cordoned off in preparation, the supporters of Frente Amplio, or Broad Front were gathering. The crowd was huge and rapidly swelling as the minutes clicked down to poll closure. After polls close, the crowd was clearly anticipating a victory. Everywhere the red, white, and blue banners of the Frente Amplio waved along with Uruguayan flags. Wherever the cameras looked, there were smiling happy faces. Spontaneous celebrations of bouncing, singing, and dancing broke out in various sections of the vast gathering. It was a party waiting to erupt. 

Meanwhile, in a section of downtown, streets were similarly cordoned off in front of the headquarters of the National Party. There were just a few hundred supporters standing about rather quietly. There were some of the blue and white party banners, but none were being waved. Nobody danced or sang. They too awaited the first official indication, but their faces—anxious and resigned—already told the story.

When the first results were reported at precisely 8.30 p.m., the picture was clear. With just 43% of the polls then counted, Frente Amplio held a fraction over 50% of the votes cast. More importantly, the National Party held just over 44%. Already, all but the most conservative pollsters confidently projected a Frente Amplio victory. Over the next few hours Frente Amplio numbers went up, then back down a bit, and finished at about 52%; the Nationals ended up near 44%.

When the first announcement was made, the many thousands gathered along the Rambla exploded in celebration. Fireworks burst overhead and continued sporadically for the next few hours. Darkening skies turned into pouring rain, but the crowds did not leave. They waited to see their victorious political team. Nearly an hour and a half later they were rewarded with the appearance of president-elect, 74-year-old Jose “Pepe” Mujica and his running mate Danilo Astori. Also appearing were current Frente Amplio president, Tabare Vazquez, and senator and wife of Mujica, Lucia Topolansky, who is the senator who garnered the most votes in the October general election, and stands third in line for the presidency behind her husband and Astori.

At the National Party site, the street gathering had disappeared. Inside stalwart supporters reflected the defeat. Many women shed tears. The men looked like their world had fallen apart. And indeed it had. The promises of the past year that had intensified in the months leading up to the October election, and the eventual November run-off for the presidency, were now as useless as the crumpled pamphlets and suddenly sad looking blue and white banners of the defeated party. Both vice-presidential candidate Jorge Larranaga, and presidential hopeful and former president, Luis Alberto Lacalle, made fine speeches. The bitter rhetoric of the preceding months gave way to the acceptance that Uruguay is a democracy, and the people of Uruguay had exercised their democratic rights. The National Party was not the party of choice in the elections of 2009.

Meanwhile, at the victory site, Astori and Mujica also gave speeches. Mujica, who, during the election campaign, had distanced himself from his Tupamaro guerilla past, and the political ideologies of Uruguay in the 1970s, said that power came from “the hearts of the great masses”. He repeatedly thanked those gathered in front of him and his supporters in their homes around the country watching on TV. He reassured everyone that he would form a government that would seek consensus, and continue the policies begun by the hugely popular out-going President Vazquez.

And thus, on Monday morning, the day after, when the sun poked out from behind the clouds, there seemed to be a calmness that pervaded the land. Politicking was over; governing was coming.