Now 89 years old and suffering from esophageal cancer, Jose Mujica will probably still have time to see his progressive coalition in government of Uruguay. Having retired from political life in 2020, the former Tupamaros guerrilla, who ended up in prison for 12 years after the coup d'état in 1973, and then president from 2010 to 2015 and leader of the Frente Amplio that governed the small South American country from 2005 to 2020, has found his heir: his name is Yamandu Bears, He is 57 years old and wants to bring Uruguay back to what it was with Mujica, that is, a social policy model, civil rights and sustainable development that inspired socialisms around the world and gave rise to the so-called “red wave”, a fortunate period for progressive governments in South America.
Uruguay Elections: Centre-left favourite with Orsi
After the parenthesis with the outgoing centre-right government led by Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, on Sunday 27 October Uruguay goes back to the polls and according to all the polls the voters are clearly oriented towards restore confidence in the center-left: Orsi is at 42% in voting intentions, with almost 20 points of advantage over Alvaro Delgado, leader of the Partido Nacional and supported by President Lacalle Pou, who cannot run again because in the Spanish-speaking country one cannot lead the government for two consecutive legislatures.
In third place there is Andres Ojeda of the Partido Colorado, another center-right formation that is running on its own, thus opening the doors to a possible victory for the Frente Amplio already in the first round. If, however, Orsi were not to surpass 50% of the votes, the second round would be held, scheduled for November 24, with Mujica's protégé still the favorite, although with the threat of a reunification of the opponents.
Voting is also taking place to elect the new Parliament
But on October 27th, not only the presidential elections will be held, but also the legislative ones to compose the new Parliament (30 senators and 99 deputies) and the referendum on the reform of social security, which the conservative government proposed in 2023, specifically providing for the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 65. It is precisely against this type of measure that Orsi has built his campaign and his consensus, promising to restore the policies that had led Uruguay to be one of the wealthiest countries in South America: The extreme poverty rate is now 0,3%, by far the lowest in the area, while the poverty rate during the Mujica era had gone from 40% to less than 8%, with the average wage increasing by 55%, GDP growing by an average of 4% per year and the number of people with medical coverage rising from 700.000 to 2,5 million.
How is Uruguay doing today?
But today the poverty rate has risen dangerously over 10%, and what is most worrying is the future, given that among minors the percentage is 20%, three points more than before the pandemic and above all 9 times more than among the over 65s, that is, the generation returning from the golden years of growth.
In recent years, however, Uruguay has lost sight of the less well-off classes and has become a country for the rich: from exporter of beef, cellulose and soy, it is now a safe haven for foreign millionaires looking for tax havens, and always because of the tax breaks it is transforming into a small Silicon Valley, with the tech industry now representing 4% of the GDP and two-thirds of exports. In fact, they have chosen the country of 3,3 million inhabitants Microsoft, which has built its first artificial intelligence laboratory in the southern hemisphere, and Google, which is investing almost 1 billion dollars for a data center in Canelones, the very city of which Orsi was mayor.
The proposals of Orsi's centre-left
But Orsi now wants to bring the social and environmental agenda back to the centre, so in addition to proposing a softer pension reform – with the awareness, however, that the country, in demographic crisis and with life expectancy having risen to 78 years, can no longer afford a retirement age of 60 – has promised a 50% increase in subsidies of the Tarjeta Uruguay Social and a National Drought Emergency Plan, a problem that has been plaguing all of South America for a couple of years. The candidate of the progressive front does not intend to avoid even a very sensitive issue such as security, promising the hiring of thousands of police officers across the country, but also arguing that “we must be tough on crime but even tougher on its causes.” This is why Orsi opposes the center-right’s attempt to amend the Constitution, including in the referendum the authorization for nighttime police operations against drug trafficking, a practice prohibited by the Charter because it would risk returning the country to the dark years of military dictatorship.
Still on the subject of dictatorships, Orsi intends to adopt in international politics a moderate and pro-Western posture, and in fact has already distanced itself without ifs or buts from the regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. On economic policy, he inherits a country that in recent years has progressively distanced itself from the Mercosur alliance to seek an ever closer relationship with China.
Uruguay was not the only one to take this path, since now half of Latin America – Brazil, Chile and Peru first and foremost – is in fact dependent on Beijing and if on the one hand the economies are benefiting from a commercial point of view, on the other it is undeniable that the strategy deserves reflection, because the continent cannot live only on exports of food commodities but needs to reindustrialize and have a common vision on environmental policies. Orsi's objective, in the wake of Mujica and by virtue of his friendship with Brazilian President Lula, is to also strengthen the axis with neighboring countries.
