Election results

Uruguay's coat of arms

The general elections held Sunday, where the Presidence and higher and lower chambers of Congress were elected was a display of civic culture that made everyone proud, but in which the two leading contenders came out as losers.

The left wing coalition and incumbent, the Frente Amplio, or Broad Front, appeared as the clear leader in the polls with between 47% and 48% of the vote, pending final counts, but crucially short of the 50% + 1 votes needed to win in the first round. Hence, the ballotage, or second round scheduled for November 29.

In addition to not reaching the outright majority, the FA showed the first decrease in voting percetange in its history, with final numbers not out yet, but in the vicinity of 2 to 3 percentage points. To top the sense of "defeat" that clouds the FA campaign, none of the two referendums sponsored by the governing party were approved.One proposed the annullment of provisions granting amnesty from prosecution to government figures who participated in human rights violations or crimes during the military dictatorship in the 70s and 80s. The other one proposed allowing overseas vote by mail to the hundreds of thousands of Uruguayans living overseas and presumed to be predominantly FA sympathizers. All together, the results produced a press conference with somber faces and a visibly irritated presidential candidate, Pepe Mujica, who didn't hide his contempt for the press and who, rather than make use of the free national broadcast to the entire country, rushed to dismiss the Q&A.

On to the front runner. The "Blancos" (whites) or Partido Nacional had a pathetic election, with a steady decline in votes over the last couple of months of the election, finishing below the 29% mark. Candidate Alberto Lacalle, who will now be disputing the presidential office with the FA's Mujica, gave a good, sensible speach, which some pundits accused of being too long, and managed a few tears in the end.

The colorados were the big revelation. Pedro Bordaberry voted way above pollsters' projections and almost doubled the party's percentage of the vote in the 2005 election. Bordaberry --well, he now goes by Pedro-- immediately announced his support for Lacalle, to great cheers from his own supporters.

The Independent party also made strides ending with 2.5% of the vote, but failed to get the wished-for senate seat.

The crucial issue of legislative majority is still undefined, it was that close. Should the Frente Amplio win the second round, it will win the majority thanks to the seat occupied by the Vice President. Otherwise, it may still obtain this majority from the division of "leftover" votes that is prorrated between the parties.

Maldonado coat of arms, ain't it cute!

In Maldonado itself, the Frente Amplio did worse than overall nationally, as it garnered just 40% of the vote, with the Partido Nacional reaching 31%, the Colorados 21% and the Partido Independiente 2.8%.

The FA also slid drastically with respect to the performance in Maldonado in the previous election, when it had managed 49% of the votes. The greatest advance was seen in the Partido Colorado, with more than double the party's votes this time around, while the Partido Nacional also lost hugely, 8 percentage points.

This all came about as the voting base in the department grew more than 12% over the 2005 election, when there were 108,000 registered voters, and about 28% over the 1999 elections.