One of Uruguay’s most prominent pollsters Cifra is reluctant to guess who will win next week’s presidential elections. Cifra said that former president Tabaré Vázquez, running for a second time, is more vulnerable than when current President José Mujica was campaigning for the top seat in 2009. Vázquez is backed by Mujica to be his succesor. Their Broad Front leads all the polls but the election is most likely to go to a runoff on November 30 to determine whether or not it will win a third succesive term in power. Vázquez and his running partner Raúl Sendic have around 40 percent of voting intentions according to the country’s four main pollsters: Cifra, Equipos, Factum and Radar. It is also in doubt whether Broad Front will maintain its majority in Congress if it were to win. Vázquez (2005-2010) and then Mujica were both able to pass laws with relative ease due to their government’s majority. This may not be the case if Vázquez is elected for a second time.
Mujica told reporters last week that he was very confident that Vázquez would go on to win the upcoming elections depite what the polls say. He also suggested that he is not worried about his party losing power in Congress. “I have the intimate conviction that the FA will win the election and not only that, but also obtain the parliamentary majority,” he said in remarks the Uruguayan newspaper The Republic.
At this moment in time there are four parties that have parliamentary representation in Uruguay (FA, PN, PC and the Independent Party), but some polls indicate that radical parties such as Unidad Popular and Uncompromising Ecological Radical Party (PERI) could get a seat in the Lower House which would put in doubt FA’s majority.
According to analysts the greatest risk to the FA are the problems that it wilhave to retaining votes from the middle-class and university middle-class. At the moment many of these voters are chosing the Independent Party.
Full Article: Uruguay gears up for ‘unpredictable’ election – BuenosAiresHerald.com.