Home > Leftist wins historic Uruguayan presidential election
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Tens of thousands celebrated in the streets after socialist Tabare Vazquez declared victory in Uruguay’s presidential election, an historic first for the left in the South American country.
Vazquez greeted weeping, cheering followers after exit polls showed his coalition, which includes former guerrilla fighters, with more than 50 percent of votes cast.
"Celebrate Uruguayans, celebrate, for the victory is ours, thanks, many thanks," Vazquez told crowds gathered along Montevideo’s main avenue waving red, white and blue flags — the coalition colors.
Street vendors were doing brisk business, and youths drove by in packed cars honking horns and chanting pro-Vazquez slogans.
"It’s a paradox that in this day of happiness I am crying," said Manuel Mata, 62, part of Vazquez’s security detail.
Vazquez’s victory breaks the stranglehold the Colorado and National parties have held on the presidency since Uruguay’s independence from Spain in 1825.
Vazquez, 64, pressed his ballot against his heart before dropping it in the poll box in a working class Montevideo neighborhood earlier Sunday.
Swamped by supporters and reporters, Vazquez confidently dedicated "his triumph" to a recently deceased leftist politician.
"We are going to extend a brotherly and tolerant hand," said Vazquez after voting, "because the Uruguay of the future has to be built between all of us."
Exit polls by both the Factum and Interconsult firms showed Vazquez had won enough votes to claim victory and avoid a runoff. Election officials said official results would be known early Monday.
Vazquez’s nearest rival is attorney Jorge Larranaga, 48, of the National Party, who polls showed had around 30 percent support. Larranaga urged "respect and tolerance" as he cast his ballot, and later conceded defeat.
Across town, Colorado Party President Jorge Batlle — blamed for the country’s worst economic slump in decades — stood in line and waited for two people ahead of him to cast ballots before he could vote.
Under Batlle, president since 2000, Uruguay suffered an economic meltdown that resulted in an 80 percent drop of the country’s hard-currency reserves, saw official unemployment rise to 20 percent, and left one in four Uruguayans destitute.
Batlle cannot run for re-election, but is running for a senate seat. Uruguayans "will vote in absolute liberty and will elect its governors like always," he said in a brief and tense exchange with reporters.
According to polls the official Colorado party candidate had around 10 percent support.
Voters are choosing a president for a five-year term, along with 31 senators and 99 deputies. Some 2.5 million of Uruguay’s 3.4 million citizens are obliged by law to vote.
The new president will tackle Uruguay’s 12-billion-dollar debt and a currency recovering from a two-thirds devaluation.
Vazquez, a medical doctor and former Montevideo mayor, lost presidential bids in 1994 and 1999.
He follows other left-of-center candidates taking office in South America, including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2002), Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner (2003), Ecuador’s Lucio Gutierrez (2002), Chile’s Ricardo Lagos (2000) and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (1998).
Chavez early Monday called Vazquez’s victory "a milestone" in Latin American history.
"What has happened in Uruguay is one more step on the road toward building a new South America, a new Latin America, a new world that is being born," Chavez told followers celebrating an apparent landslide victory for leftist candidates in local elections held in Venezuela Sunday.