MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan incumbent presidential candidate leads by 6 points in polls

Mujica (74) is closer to becoming Uruguay’s next president

With only ten days for the Uruguayan presidential run-off, incumbent candidate Jose Pepe Mujica leads with 48% vote intention while his rival Luis Alberto Lacalle stands at 42% and the undecided 10%, according to the latest public opinion poll released Thursday by a Montevideo newspaper.

According to pollster Inteconsult, based on interviews done November 14/16, the Mujica-Danilo Astori advanced one point and rival National party Lacalle/Jorge Larrañaga 2 percentage points, while the undecided, blank or spoilt jumped three percentage points.

In the first round of the Uruguayan ballotage system, Mujica and Astori were clear winners over Lacalle-Larrañaga, thus ensuring a majority control of Parliament. However they were two points short of the 50% plus one vote demanded for the Executive.

“We can say that the ruling coalition Broad Front ticket is retaining votes from the first round, however not necessarily all those who supported them will repeat in the run-off” cautioned Juan Carlos Doyenart from Interconsult.

Regarding Lacalle-Larrañaga, “even when a very small percentage of the National party supporters remain undecided, almost 70% of those who voted for the junior opposition Colorado party and Independents are inclined to support them”.

And so far 10% of the electorate has not decided whom they will support the last Sunday of November.

The opposition junior Colorado party, which came in third with 17% of the vote in October, recommended voting for Lacalle-Larrañaga although the National party is questioning the fact the support was rather tepid instead of categorical.

In Montevideo where half the electoral role is registered, the ruling coalition Broad Front leads with 58% of the vote. However in the rest of the country the opposition ticket has a five percentage point advantage and growing.

The Interconsult poll also asked about a recent incident that shocked Uruguayan public opinion when a fire led to the accidental discovery of an arsenal of weapons (short and long fire arms, plus sufficient live rounds to supply a contingent of 500 men).

There’s an ongoing judicial investigation, and the man apparently owner of the weapons, which included a few anti tank grenades, killed himself when surrounded by a SWAT police group.

Since Mr. Mujica and most of his close aides are former Tupamaros guerrillas converted into politics, the opposition claimed the weapons of mysterious origin belonged to them.

However the ruling coalition strongly denied the version as said it was part of a “dirty tricks campaign” by Mr. Lacalle and the Colorados.

The opinion poll showed that a majority of Uruguayans, 45% believe the arsenal belongs to arms smugglers, most probably destined to organized crime in Brazil, while 34% said the most plausible origin could be extremist-fundamentalist groups from the left, 23% and from the right, 9%. The rest did not know or did not answer.

If Mujica wins at the end of November it will be the second term running of the ruling catch-all coalition led by President Tabare Vazquez whose five years end next March first. If Lacalle wins he will have to rule with a parliament comfortably dominated by the opposition which has anticipated it will not support most of the initiatives he has been announcing or promising during this electoral campaign.