Uruguayan ex-president Jose Mujica voted in the first election round on October 27 © Pablo PORCIUNCULA / AFP
It was voted out in 2020 on the back of concerns about rising crime blamed on high taxes and a surge in cocaine trafficking through the port of Montevideo.
Polling numbers show perceived insecurity remains Uruguayans’ top concern five years later.
“For workers, these past five years have not been good at all. I’m on the street all day, and what worries me the most is insecurity,” Orsi voter Gustavo Maya, a 34-year-old vendor of gas cylinders told AFP.
“I see many robberies, more and more homicides, and few police officers. That’s what worries me the most.”
For Delgado backer and stonemason William Leal, 38, the center-right is the best option for workers.
“I want this government to continue because in the construction sector there was much more work than in previous governments,” he said.
The first round of voting was accompanied by a referendum in which Uruguayans were asked whether police should be allowed to carry out nighttime raids on homes as part of the fight against drug trafficking. The initiative failed.
Voting is compulsory in Uruguay, one of Latin America’s most stable democracies which boasts comparatively high per-capita income and low poverty levels.
During the heyday of leftist rule, Uruguay legalized abortion and same-sex marriage, became the first Latin American country to ban smoking in public places and the world’s first nation, in 2013, to allow recreational cannabis use.
(AFP)
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Publish date : 2024-11-23 13:26:00
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