Politics in Uruguay

Last night (Monday) we got the opportunity to meet the Presidential Candidate (Lacalle) and Vice-Presidential Candidate (Larrañaga) for the Nacional Party (or the Blancos). We are in the heat of the political battle for president here. I believe the election is Oct 25 or 27 or something like that, so the candidates are in full campaigning mode. One of the women from church is a very active Blanco and supporter of Lacalle. She invited us to an event where both would be speaking. Now she told us it would be a short event where they would present some information to the candidates then at the end we could meet them and take a picture with them.

Well... Um... there ended up being 6 speakers, before that candidates themselves responded. It was a tad dull... ok so at the end we said that was 2 1/2 hours of our lives we wouldn't get back. It was made worse by the fact I didn't understand the speakers... they were talking really fast. But even the candidates themselves (they are on the left) looked bored. That made it a bit more fun.

Finally Larrañaga spoke, he was the easiest to understand of everyone. But by the time he spoke, my brain was done, so I didn't really get much from it.

Lacalle spoke last, of course. He wasn't too hard to understand. Lacalle had been president back in the 90's. Here, people cannot be elected for consecutive terms. They can be re-elected, but they have to take a term off. Oh funny story, as they were walking in, we were all sitting together on one side of the room. Lacalle turned and made a face at us... as in stuck out his tongue and everything. I always figured the urge to make faces at people was the leading reason I couldn't go into politics.

After they spoke, they made their way out pretty quickly. But we did get our picture with Larrañaga. He even greeted some of the group with a kiss in good Uruguayan fashion.

We also got to have our picture taken with Lacalle. He moved Amanda in front because she's chiquitita (little) then sang a few lines of the ABBA song. He clearly does not take himself too seriously. He also offered to come to CasaACU and give a History lesson to us. So that was nice.

Just a little bit about the Uruguayan presidential elections. OK, so much of this I have learned in Spanish so this could all be wrong. There are 4 main parties in Uruguay: Nacional (Blancos, Lacalle's party), Colorado, Frente Amplio, and Indepiendente. The Blancos and Colorados are the traditional parties. The Colorado's were apparently in power when the military took over back in the 70's (I think) and so have been out of favor ever since. Frente Amplio is actually a group of parties that have decided to work together including the socialist, communists, and many other groups on the left. The current president is a member of Frente Amplio. I think Blancos are left center and Colorados are right center, but I could have that backwards. I don't know much about the Indepiendentes...

The presidential term here is 5 years. You can be elected to multiple terms, but not consecutively. I like this in some ways because a sitting president is not distracted by campaigning, but he (or she) is also not going to just mail it in, because they might want to run again in the future. To win a candidate must have 50% of the popular vote. You can imagine that with 4 parties, it is tough to get 50%. If in the election in a couple weeks there is not some one with a majority, the two candidates with the most votes will have a run-off in November.

From what I understand the race this time is really down to Mujica of Frente Amplio and Lacalle of the Blancos. Mujica is expected to get the most votes in the election this month, but not 50%. Lacalle is supposed to get the 2nd most. The prediction is that Mujica will win the run-off, but no one is sure how it will turn out. That's why they have the election.

So there you go...