It has been a while since I wrote up the local political situation in any depth. Since the parties are electing their presidential candidates from the pre-candidate batch next month, I might as well offer an overview of Uruguay's offerings sorted by party with many omitted for irrelevance. Polls were consulted, but weighed trivially into this ordering:
The Frente Amplio
- Daniel Martinez - Martinez was the Intendant (Mayor) of Montevideo until he recently quit the job to officially join the Presidential race. He appears to be the party's front runner largely due to his humble office preventing him from making singular expensive blunders in the manner of his major primary competitors. The Frente Amplio has been in power for 15 years presenting plenty of opportunities for just about everyone in a higher office to find their name a punchline.
- Carolina Cosse - Polls a distant second to Martinez. Was the President of state telecom company ANTEL under the Mujica regime and was minister of industries, energy, etc under Vasquez until resigning the position when campaign season legally opened.1 Hanging around her campaign is the recently opened ANTEL Arena. Basketball is Uruguay's second sport2 and 100+ million dollars were sunk into building the 15,000 seat arena.3 Because Uruguay, unlike Argentina identifies as a poor country Cosse's basketball baby is an unpopular boondogle, but an especially unpopular one with the Front's voter base.
- Uncountable others - As a coalition the Frente Amplio consists of many member parties. The field is very crowded.
The Partido Nacional (Formerly Los Blancos)
Historically the rural and nationalist party and now the Rural, conservative, nationalist, and centerist party, the National Party is the electorally relevant opposition party. They are also the largest single party, much larger than any single member party of the Frente Amplio.
- Louis Lacalle Pou - Runner up in the last presidential election. Grandson of Louis Alberto Herrera. His father was president (1990 - 1995), though less notable for having had that office than grandpa is notable for having not. Had a fistfight on tv in the Chamber of Deputies in 2007 against several Frente Amplio deputies. CIA killed his uncle and tried to kill his daddy when the National Party was trying to negotiate an end to the dictatorship in the 1970's.4
A lawyer by training and criticized by the Frente for not having been in the divine state of "trabajo laboral" Lacalle Pou still manages to appear to be the most muscular of the candidates. His ruggedly handsome jeans and pickup trucks aesthetic could make him the frontrunner in any US western (not coastal) state's gubanatorial race. His biggest handicap is that he's called for an austerity shock without any tax relief.
- Juan Sartori - He of Russian oligarch wife and legal cannabis fortune. He's been running an awareness campaign asking Uruguayos who he is before began running the legal Presidential campaign. Uses the popular US red party "less taxes, smarter spending line" which makes the locals a bit nervous.5 Consistently flips between second and third place in the very small sample size local polls. Has an advantage in a dismissive reception by other candidates. Other candidates have been trying to cut into each other and he's just campaigning on and staying in the news.
- Larrañaga - Old, fat, blew his load getting his "vivir sin miedo" ballot initiative on the ballot. Engaged in a losing back and forth with Lacalle Pou. Votes drawn may influence the selection of legislative candidates for the general election.
- AntÃa - Polls in the low single digits. Started the active portion of his campaign late. His militants have been painting over somewhat interesting graffiti with large fields of white with small blue AntÃa logos destroying important local navigation landmarks in the process. Intendant of Maldonado department where money trap Punta del Este and the local Trump Tower live.
The Colorado Party (The Old Reds)
The Colorados are the classicly urban left pantsuit party. In the 20th century they enjoyed a slight dominance over the rural National Party, but after being the dominant political party during the dictatorship years, their base left them for the Frente Amplio. The party appears to be terminally capped at no more than 15% of the total intention to vote. Mujica's MPP inside the Frente Amplio is by all appearances bigger than the old Colorado Party. Both candidates appear to be in a dead heat. Both candidates key issue is dumpin more money into education.
- Julio Sanguinetti - Italian octegenarian and two term President (1985 - 1990, 1995 - 2000) his schtick is dismissing everyone else as a youngin' lacking experience. Headed ministeries in the pre dictatorship Colorado government. Campaign seems to be entirely sustained by the nostalgia of old men. Old woman either swoon over Lacalle Pou and Sartori or frump away with the Frente Amplio.
- Ernest Talvi - He identifies as a US trained economist. His voter base is mostly reddit dorks.
Partido de la Gente
A vanity party run by Eduardo Novick. His schtick is running for progressively higher offices after his last election loss. Massive ad spending and single digit polling. Runs on a hard law and order platform. Polls around 1 percent of the intention to vote despite sustaining the highest campaign spending. His pre-campaign "awareness" billboards were out in force when I landed in the country.
Minor Parties
The number of minor parties in Uruguay is nearly uncountable with many inside and outside the Frente Amplio coalition existing with a handful of member/supporters in the way a book club or knitting circle might exist anywhere else. Some might be as big as a couple hundred members, but when they host rallies the crowds tend to come from the same student and labor groups that will show up for any sufficiently leftist party.
- This appears to be a thing here. Similarly term limits keep incumbent presidents from running for a second term leading to the 15 years of FA rule being a VÅ›zquez regime, the Mujica regime, and a second run with Vásquez. [↩]
- Uruguay hosted the Basketball World Cup in 1967. [↩]
- The previous, now demolished "Municipal Cylinder" managed to seat 18,000 [↩]
- Despite the National Party having been supressed and suffering casualties during the dictatorship years alongside the leftists, the Latino agreement machine has spent years consensusing them into "the fascists" for being somewhat conservative. [↩]
- The Latino labor movement has influenced a popular conception of economics as strictly zero sum. The idea that more or smarter work can boost overall productivity and wealth is nearly unheard of here. It is all "they have, you have not, fuck it lets take it" sorta thought. [↩]
Nice synthesis. Some thoughts:
>"His (Lacalle Poe's) biggest handicap is that he's called for an austerity shock without any tax relief."
Hmm, I'd say his biggest handicap is that he's seen as a 'boludo' in general. Some say "Lacalle Pou es un boludo, pero es nuestro boludo".
>"The Colorados are the classicly urban left pantsuit party"
Yes and no, everything here is varying and kind-of-centrist, (including the FA in some aspects), there's even a small libertarian group in the Colorados under the motto "No ofendo ni temo".
>"1 The Latino labor movement has influenced a popular conception of economics as strictly zero sum. The idea that more or smarter work can boost overall productivity and wealth is nearly unheard of here. It is all "they have, you have not, fuck it lets take it" sorta thought."
There are lots of people who think that, yes... but also there is more people here understand about economic development and productivity than in the rest of Latam (except Chile, ofc), no one I heard of is against the multiple Free Zones present in all the coast, or is oblivious to how those help Uruguay's economy.
I suspect our calibrations for the definition of "centrist" differ. I find Lacalle Pou the closest Uruguay has a classic European centerist, Sartori barely right of center, with Larrañaga and AntÃa being the somewhat left of center. By my calibration I don't really see an actual political "right" here. Not even in the sense of Argentina's Macri being right of center.
I've not dug much into the fringe Colorado groups as the enterprise seems stuck in a sort of living death. "Technocrats" tend to only find electoral success as awkward compromises, consider the election of Macron in France as the controlling example. Macron won a run-off election out of fear La Pen would actively work to make the working class poorer, and then after winning Macron immediately went on to actively make the working French poorer, but from embracing international-left fads instead of the austerity boogeyman.
My impression of the popular economics is shaped by PIT-CNT acting as its own para-government along with the popularity of the MPP and Chorro culture with a helping of who the newspapers are lionizing as "visionaries" among the book club parties' candidates. Even with the free-zones (as opposed to the Petrobras drama where the sentiment is overt), the underlying sentiment I read is one of capturing jobs in Uruguay from the international firms. The costs associated with doing business in a freezone are prohibitive for small and medium businesses. Very few Uruguayo firms are in any position to gain advantage by engaging with the free zones.
I came here because Latin America suffers a poverty of independent datacenters, but either because of Uruguay being expensive or in spite of it... they exist here. The culture and the people are growing on me, but for all the talk of Chilean business prowess they suffer the curse of Pacific coastline which is death to international internet connectivity. If you want to do internet business internationally, Uruguay is a stronger value proposition than Hong Kong or any of the growing economies in South East Asia for the reason that Pacific cables are far more expensive than Atlantic cables.
On the Agricultural front China has African pig ebola now which means beef is going to get more expensive globally, this is a tremendous opportunity for Uruguay so long as it avoids the mistakes that killed Argentina's beef exports and turned their once excellent premium beef into a lesser commodity that no longer draws the premium price Uruguayo beef does.
Sure calibrations differ, I'm talking relative to the locality of latam. Neither Macri being not exactly a good example of right. Latam compared to the rest of the world is all thrown out to the left. Over all: yeah, agreed.
Yes, Uruguay is really very left leaning, I'm from peronistán(*), so in relative terms... even Uruguay looks like a liberal paradise. Hmm, mileage may vary in respect to public opinion about the free zones, I may be biased because I live in Pocitos, but people from around MVD tends to be quite positive to them. Yes the costs are prohibitive for Uy's firms, no dobut, but nevertheless FZs attract investments, savings, and produce know how, the advantage is indirect, totally, but it's there. Basically every major peronistani software company has an office in one of those and uses it as a bridge to keep their money safe in Uy.
Good lord meat is good here. It totally makes me recall argentinian barbecues in the countryside back in the 90s. I hope too they avoid the same mistakes.
(*) Formerly known as "argentina" by some rebels.
I live in Pocitos as well, but in this small and rural town its difficult to stay completly in the neighborhood. The city's norther border isn't Avenida Italia after all.
As an addition here's one of the local rags talking about what candidates talked about at a rural interest gathering. Talvi appears to propose the hardest of the austerity shocks with a 5 year public hiring freeze hoping the actuarial tables balance things out.
[...] outlook is looking a lot like it did the last time I visited the issue. Lacalle Pou still leads the Blancos despite Sartori taking Larrañaga voters, the irrelevant [...]
[...] yuppie social democrat/democratic socialist Daniel Martinez "won" with just a smidge over 40 percent of the vote. Carolina Cosse came narrowly into second [...]
[...] transit times go up with proximity to Punta Brava. Numerous relatively wealty socialists including Frente Amplio Presidential Candidate Daniel Martinez and Frente Amplio Precandidate Carolina Cosse f.... The primary center of activity in this area is the Punta Carretas Shopping where many of the [...]
[...] big picture in local electoral politics has moved little since the selection of candidates. On October 27th ballots will be case [...]