Yamandú Orsi, the heir of the left-wing figure José Mujica, elected president – ​​Libération

Supported by the charismatic former left-wing president, the candidate of the Broad Front was elected on Sunday November 24. A former history teacher, he had been an activist in his mentor's party since his youth.

At 89 years old, José Mujica can savor the victory of his foal: Yamandú Orsi won the presidential election in Uruguay on Sunday, November 24, and the left is making its return to the small country stuck between Brazil and Argentina. Despite his great age and esophageal cancer which weakens him, former president “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla imprisoned and tortured for eleven years under the military dictatorship – from 1973 to 1985 –, has made numerous appearances during of meetings to attract the vote in favor of Orsi, a 57-year-old former history professor.

Candidate of the left-wing coalition Frente Amplio (Broader Front), Yamandú Orsi won with 49.8% of the votes against 45.9% for his center-right opponent Alvaro Delgado, runner-up designated by outgoing president Luis Lacalle Pou, in power since 2020.

Folk dancing skills

Yamandú Orsi is the first president of the country not to have been born in Montevideo since the return of democracy in 1985. He was born in Canelones, capital of the department of the same name, in a humble family of peasants who, due to of his father's illness, will have to leave the land to open a grocery store in town. At the microphone of a radio station, he recently confided: “I was born during the frost of 1967, which all farmers remember.”