MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Coalition government for Uruguay 2010, whoever wins

Although still eleven months away, public opinion polls show that Uruguay's next government will not enjoy the current comfortable congressional majority and the president will emerge from a run off at the end of November 2009.

Two reliable public opinion polls also indicate a clear gradual deterioration of the ruling coalition support to the benefit of the opposition. Last July the Broad Front and the opposition were almost even in vote intention but since then the gap has been growing steadily month after month and now stands at five percentage points. Since taking office in March 2005 the ruling coalition was always ahead until the second quarter of 2008. According to CIFRA and based on interviews taken on November 14/15, the Broad Front enjoys a vote intention of 41%, the main opposition force, National Party 36%, the opposition junior partner Colorado Party 9%, independents 1% and undecided or wouldn't answer 13%. Similarly the Bottinelli November poll has the ruling coalition with a 42% support; National party 37%; Colorado party 9%; Independents, 1.5% and a newly created radical group originally from the Broad Front, 0.5%. The undecided were 8% and the rest did not reply. More specifically in the ruling coalition the two strongest presidential hopefuls Senators Jose Mujica and Danilo Astori, who have refused to reach a consensus ticket and seem determined to fight it out in a primary if necessary, contrary to the long standing tradition of the Broad Front when in opposition, continue to monopolize vote intention. According to CIFRA, in option one, primaries, Mr. Mujica carries the day with 47%, followed by Mr. Astori 33%; President Tabare Vazquez re-election group 10% and a possible third option, Daniel Martinez, 3%. Option two, if national elections were held in November 2008, the vote would have split as follows: Mujica, 46%; Astori 40%; Vazquez, 6% and Martinez 3%. However according to Bottinelli, the Broad Front vote currently is divided as follows: Astori 38%; Mujica 41%; Martinez 3%; others 6% and Undecided 12%. In October 2004, the Broad Front, a catch all movement made up of radical groups, former guerrillas, communists, socialists and Christian democrats among others, won an absolute majority of 50.9%, the first time ever under the current Uruguayan constitution. However the contracting tendency of the ruling coalition and expansion of opposition, --plus the looming effects of the global crisisâ€"anticipate a coalition government, whoever wins as of march 2010, in the best Uruguayan political tradition.