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The leftist Yamandú Orsi , president-elect of Uruguay after Sunday’s runoff, promised to call for national dialogue “again and again” in a speech to his supporters after learning of the projections that give him the victory.
” I will be the president who repeatedly calls for national dialogue to find the best solutions, of course with our own approach, but also listening very carefully to what others tell us,” said the successor of former president José “Pepe” Mujica , after his rival, the center-right official Álvaro Delgado, acknowledged his defeat.
With 94.4% of the voting circuits counted, Orsi obtained 1,123,420 votes compared to 1,042,001 for Delgado, the Electoral Court reported.
The 57-year-old history teacher, who was twice mayor of Canelones, the most populous department in the country after Montevideo, defeated his rival from the ruling center-right coalition, Álvaro Delgado.
With Orsi’s victory, the Frente Amplio will return on March 1 to the presidential seat it lost in 2020 after governing for 15 years.
Mujica and his praise for Yamandú Orsi
Mujica, a leading figure of the global left and president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, saw long ago that Orsi had the qualities to become his political heir and bet heavily on him.
“I’ve known him for 30-odd years, I saw him grow into a man, from the very beginning,” recalled the former guerrilla fighter in the final stretch of the campaign, highlighting the “negotiation” skills of his successor, whom he described as a “magician” in reaching agreements.
Orsi also has an “advantage,” according to Mujica: it includes both the urban and rural countries.
“I trust him, because what he did in Canelones was wonderful,” he said about Orsi’s management at the head of that department, which for Mujica is “a sample of the country in miniature” because it brings together “all the problems that Uruguay has.”
Of Spanish and Italian descent, educated in public schools and committed to social equality promoted by the State, Orsi embodies much of Uruguayan DNA.
Francisco Vernazza, the political communications expert in charge of the campaign that brought Mujica to the presidency, highlighted Orsi’s profile as a “team builder.”
“Calm, open, with empathy for the rural world. It is the synthesis of the identity of the Frente Amplio, of that deeply popular thing,” Vernazza told the newspaper El País before the first round of elections on October 27.
