MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

With two weeks to the Uruguayan election, only the undecided keep growing

Voters queuing to vote in Uruguay

With just two weeks left for polling day, Uruguay’s electorate is under saturation bombardment from the different political parties’ spots and public opinion polls on vote intention. Next October 25th Uruguayan voters elect president, parliament and will have to decide on two referendums that are proving controversial.

All polls made public indicate that the ruling coalition presidential ticket has a solid majority in the range of 44%, while the main opposition party has been sliding and loosing ground since July and currently stands between 29% and 31%, having accumulated a loss of eight to nine points in this period.

The Colorado party between 11 and 12%; Independents 3%, and blank votes and undecided 10 to 12%.

However looking back to July, the regularly published polls show that the Broad Front is holding high on public backing but in spite of huge government displays of its achievements in the last five years and intense media coverage, 43, 44 and 45 have turned into an unmoveable landmark percentage.

If this is confirmed at the end of the month it means a run off is inevitable since the presidential ticket of former guerrilla leader Jose Mujica and ex Finance Minister Danilo Astori, need 50% of valid votes plus one to win the first round.

If that is the case it’s an open race because contrary to what usually happens when voting day is closer the percentage of undecided voters has doubled, basically in the last two months, merit of the many mistakes, bloopers and fumbles committed by the two main candidates verbal excesses.

In effect, the erosion or stagnation suffered by the two main candidates has helped the Colorado party, once the leading political force in the country to gradually recover from a single digit to possibly above 12% and close to 15%. Similarly with the Independents that have almost trebled to 3%, but inside the plus/minus three percentage points margin.

Furthermore none of the opinion polls released indicate the rejection percentage of the leading candidates, which is important if as all indicates there’s a run off, and the accumulation of undecided and blank votes as Election Day approaches could be indicating an overall reaction to the style and evolution of the electoral campaign.

The main opposition candidate and former president Luis Alberto Lacalle actually surprised his running mate in the National party primary last June, Senator Jorge Larrañaga, since when it all started he had a considerable negative public opinion perception, which he smartly overcame with a non aggressive, non offensive campaign and the “other cheek” attitude when non-gallantly attacked.

But since then he has tripped with some very unfortunate remarks which were intelligently turned around and backfired by the ruling coalition strategists. Lacalle also suffered a serious knee injury, which demanded a prolonged convalescence and he ignored for campaigning. Now he is being forced to take stronger and stronger pain killers which sometimes catch him sleepy or slurring his voice, that given a one time heavy drinking past, do not contribute.

In the ruling coalition Mr. Mujica had to overcome the opposition of President Tabare Vazquez and much of the Broad Front groups leadership, that openly preferred his now running mate economist Danilo Astori as the presidential candidate. He’s a down to earth character, coarse language, ruggedly dressed who speaks his mind and had to accept that some of his remarks were “stupidities” none else than from President Vazquez.

Mujica had to apologize to members of the coalition for some of the things he said about them in an interview with an Argentine newspaper later confirmed in a book of several weeks’ interviews. Similarly when addressing Argentine businessmen he had to begin arguing his opinions about Uruguay’s neighbours were taken out of context, in a private conversation, and yes “I said stupidities”.

So if Mr Lacalle and Mr Mujica continue with their current verbal spasms no wonder the undecided or don’t-know voters keep increasing, which obviously makes it more difficult for pollsters to anticipate or guess what could happen.

Finally the two referendums: one of them refers to the postal vote for Uruguayans living overseas who are a considerable number. It is estimated that 10% of the Uruguayan population is overseas forced by recurrent downfalls in economic cycles and many of them would like to vote without having to travel to Uruguay.

The opinion polls show that the vote is split almost evenly and therefore it has become a controversial issue, most probably because Uruguayans are highly political.

The other referendum is even more controversial and considers the annulment of a bill which let the military and police officers supposedly involved in human rights abuses during the 1973/1984 military dictatorship, off the hook.

The state basically dropped its punitive intentions against all those allegedly participants. This bill matched an amnesty law approved on the first day the Uruguayan legitimately elected congress convened in February 1984, in favour of the organized sedition of the sixties and seventies which tried to take government by force in the form of urban guerrilla: the relatively famous Tupamaro movement, of which Mr. Mujica belonged to the commanding political bureau.

Support for the annulment of the law, approved by Congress and later confirmed in another referendum in 1989, has been dwindling sustainedly since last May and has dropped to 42%.

It is an interesting percentage since the left leaning ruling coalition has shown a two pronged approach: on the one hand a most orthodox economic and monetary policy, which although successful was not what was promised or expected by a majority of groups inside the coalition who would like to see a greater role for the state in the economy.

This has been compensated by an aggressive human rights policy which acts as acohesion cement for the Broad Front. This has meant looking into the past to try and find the remains of the disappeared during the dictatorship, and jailing those military officers responsible. This has been done with limited success but with some emblematic cases as the jailing of two former presidents for supposedly ordering killings and torturing of dissidents and “leftwing radicals”.

This 42% is close to the solid 44% of vote intention in support of the Broad Front but how to explain the sustained erosion from 51% since last May. The two don’t necessarily overlap percentage wise, but what about the tendency.

Another open question for pollsters since Uruguay is much exposed to the media from neighbouring Argentina and the Kirchners have been implacable with their pursuit of the alleged violators of human rights. They have done so to the extent of publicly humiliating the Argentine Armed Forces, acting sometimes with an obsession bordering with the excess of authority committed by promotions of now retired military officers when they ruled mercilessly the country.