MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: ruling coalition winner in municipal elections

For the first time ever Uruguay's centre left wing ruling coalition swept away with eight of the country's 19 electoral districts in last Sunday's municipal elections.

An impressive victory for a Socialist led coalition which only last October 31 managed to win the national Executive and an overall majority in Congress.

The Broad Front victory at municipal level was a resounding defeat for Uruguay's two traditional or historical political parties that have dominated the country's politics since independence from Spain in 1830.

The National Party which had control of ten districts dropped to ten and the Colorado Party lost four, only managing to hold onto an only district in the north of the country.

The Broad Front expanded from its stronghold in the country's capital, Montevideo which they control since 1990 to seven other districts, among which the most populated and richest in the country as far as tourism and industry are concerned.

One of them is Canelones, a metropolitan extension of Montevideo with a great area of intensive farming that supplies the 2,5 million urban population. Another is Maldonado which holds the renowned international resort of Punta del Este, a preferred summer resting place for the Argentine rich and famous who have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in real estate.

Other important districts include Salto, home of the country's dynamic citrus industry and the largest energy producing dam; Paysandú once a burgeoning industrial area and Florida, heartland of Uruguay's export oriented dairy industry.

Sunday's results show a dramatic change in Uruguay's political map since the Broad Front, a coalition of twenty odd groups ranging from urban guerrillas to Communist, Socialist and Christian Democrats, now has full control of the central government and eight leading municipal districts representing almost 75% of the country's 3,5 million population.

Uruguay holds national and municipal elections every five years with a six months difference, and it's the first time ever that in a three parties system one of them has such an overwhelming working majority. The challenge and public opinion expectations are also enormous and most demanding for the coalition's credibility.

In Montevideo the incoming mayor Ricardo Erhlich, a biologist of Polish parents, won with 58% of the vote, followed by the Colorado candidate, the former Tourism minister of the previous Colorado government. However in Canelones, a traditional Colorado stronghold the Broad Front managed a landslide 62% with the Colorado party virtually disappearing with 6%.

Since 1999 Uruguay suffered the consequences of the financial distress of its huge neighbours Brazil and Argentina, and finally in 2002/03 contagion forced its collapse into the country's worst banking run and recession from which it's only now recovering.

The full impact of the crisis with GDP dropping to half, unemployment soaring to almost 20% and over half a million people plunged into poverty was piloted by the previous Colorado government which was severely punished in the October and May national and municipal polls.