Updated 8.49 a.m. October 28

With the vote count 99.9% complete in Uruguay’s elections, center-left Frente Amplio’s candidate Yamandú Orsi is headed to a run-off against Álvaro Delgado of the incumbent center-right Partido Nacional. 

Minutes before 9 a.m. on Monday, Orsi had garnered 44% — more than the other candidates, but less than the absolute majority (50% plus one) required to win outright. Delgado had 27%.

Andrés Ojeda of the Partido Colorado, who polls had suggested had a slight chance of snatching second place from Delgado, was coming in a distant third with 16%. The Nacional and Colorado parties are both members of a coalition called the Coalición Republicana, led by current President Luis Lacalle Pou, so Ojeda’s voters are likely to provide a significant boost to Delgado in the second round.

“We’re the party that grew the most and the most voted-for party in Uruguay,” Orsi said in an election-night speech, and called on his supporters to “generate that country of unity that we want so much.”

Meanwhile, Delgado said that the Coalición Republicana was “the most voted-for political project in the country,” in reference to the fact that he, Ojeda, and smaller parties such as Cabildo Abierto and the Partido Independiente got more votes between them than the Frente Amplio. The coalition, he said, “has the republican responsibility for Uruguay not to go backwards.” He shared a stage with his coalition-mates at Plaza Varela in the capital, Montevideo.

Eight minor presidential candidates were also knocked out of the race. However, the percentage the parties win determines the makeup of Uruguay’s Congress, irrespective of the results of the run-off.

Two proposals that were put for referendum alongside the presidential vote were both rejected. One was a social security reform that would have lowered the retirement age to 60 and established that the minimum pension could not be below the monthly minimum wage. The other would have allowed the police to carry out raids at night.

Voter turnout was 89%, data from Uruguay’s Electoral Court showed.

–Herald/Ambito Uruguay