MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lacalle Pou accepts defeat and promises to continue working from parliament

From now on “Lacalle Pou and Jorge Larañaga will continue with their proposals from parliament”

“People have decided and opted for the ticket Tabare Vazquez-Raul Sendic and results must be complied, respected and defended”, were Luis Lacalle Pou's first words admitting defeat on Sunday evening to Uruguay's next president Vazquez.

 Lacalle Pou (41) in a brief press conference next to his vice president hopeful Jorge Larrañaga, said that given the results from the exit polls, he had spoken to Vazquez “to recognize his victory and congratulate him for a legitimate triumph and wish his government the best of successes”

From now on “Lacalle Pou and Jorge Larañaga will continue with their proposals from parliament” and commit themselves to the duty of all legislatives, “controlling the Executive and trying to convince from parliament what we consider the best for the country”.

“If we are convinced as we are, it will be from parliament that we will try to take ahead our proposals”, underlined the opposition candidate Lacalle Pou. “This if far from any idea of stepping back on our ideas, on the contrary we will advance further. If our government proposals were good if we had won, they continue to be good because we believe that they are the best for the country. We are going to push for them through legislative accords”.

However the losing presidential candidate also cautioned that collaborating and helping with the government can't be as during the current period when large 'multilateral committees were announced, and after the pictures were taken, there was no room to listen to other proposals“.

Lacalle Pou, who based his campaign on the ”Be positive“ attitude also referred to some of the criticism received during the campaign from the winning coalition.

”If this ticket has responded in the same terms, tone and forms each stimulus we received, that would have been a tit-for-tat game and that is not our style. We have the deep satisfaction and joy of doing things the way they must be done, with a positive attitude“, underlined Lacalle Pou.

Finally he was grateful to all militants, supporters and aides both from his National Party and other parties that voted for him in the runoff.

”It is now crystal clear that Luis and Jorge were supported by far more voters than the National party obtained in October. We convened far beyond the party and the results effectively show that“ concluded Lacalle Pou's short message plus a special praise for his companion, Jorge Larrañaga whom he had beaten against all expectations, in a bitter primary months ago.

”I want to make to make a special mention and express my gratitude to Jorge and great team man and my friend”.