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INFO MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L MONTEVIDEO 000621 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/11/12 
TAGS: PREL PGOV UY
SUBJECT: Uruguay: A Race to the Runoff 
 
REF: MONTEVIDEO 595 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Robin Matthewman, Charge d'Affaires, Department of 
State, EXEC; REASON: 1.4(B), (D) 
 
Summary 
 
------------ 
 
 
 
¶1. (U) Uruguay's presidential runoff campaign is in full swing. 
Although both contenders are struggling to build on the October 25 
elections, polls give ruling Frente Amplio (FA) coalition candidate 
Jose Mujica a significant lead (48 percent to 40 percent) for the 
November 29 run-off.  As the October elections also allowed the FA 
to regain a slim majority in parliament, National (Blanco) Part 
candidate Luis Alberto Lacalle has a steep slope to climb toward 
the presidency.  Lacalle is ready to fight with renewed vigor, and 
he is presenting himself as the candidate best able to govern with 
the whole country's interests in mind.  End summary. 
 
 
 
Immediate Reactions 
 
-------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶2. (U) Having secured just under 49 percent of the valid vote, 
Mujica and his Frente Amplio coalition made an aggressive start to 
the second round by declaring the elections to be basically over. 
They asserted that the retention of the parliamentary majority 
makes the Mujica-Astori ticket the only viable political force and 
that Lacalle would be hamstrung were he to win the presidency. 
Furthermore, the Frente, contrasting their near absolute majority 
to Lacalle's 30 percent share, has complained about the need to go 
to a runoff at all. FA reps have pointed out that several other 
Latin American countries, a candidate can win with only 40% of the 
vote, or even 35% in Nicaragua. The Blancos meanwhile, initially 
jubilant to have forced the FA into a second round, quickly sobered 
once the Electoral court displayed the final results and it became 
clear that Lacalle's campaign would be left fighting an uphill 
battle to gain a presidency whose opposition would have the upper 
hand in both houses. 
 
 
 
All over, bar the shouting? 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) Polls now show Mujica with 48 percent and Lacalle with 40 
percent.  Lacalle's chances of salvaging his presidencial bid are 
low, but he remains in the running.  As expected, his efforts have 
been boosted by the support of Colorado leader Pedro Bordaberry, 
who managed to secure a substantial 16.9 percent of the vote on 
October 25 and announced that he would be voting for Lacalle in the 
second round in his election night celebration speech. Although 
Bordaberry (who is seeking to preserve as much political 
independence as possible) has said he will not be directly 
campaigning for Lacalle, the Colorado Party executive committee 
nevertheless "recommended" that Colorado voters support the Blanco 
candidate and will be carrying that message as part of a national 
tour to thank voters for their support in the first round. Lacalle 
can also probably count on receiving a proportion of the 2.5 
percent of votes that went to the Independent Party.  But, his 
chances hinge on his being able to claw back votes that already 
went to Mujica in the first round. The Blancos calculate the die 
hard-hard FA vote (qualified by one party strategist as those who 
would vote for the FA whomever the candidate) as about 44 percent. 
This leaves around 4 percent that the Blancos believe could be 
persuaded to change allegiance in the second round. 
 
 
 
Blanco Strategies 
 
----------------- 
 
¶4. (U) The first round took a visible toll on Lacalle, not least 
because of a lingering and painful leg injury (reftel). Recent 
days, however, have shown a refreshed candidate. He is a man 
accustomed to political knocks, and had to fight his way out of the 
political wilderness to become the National Party candidate, and so 
can be expected to display tenacity in this home stretch. His first 
move has been to appoint a new campaign manager, the senator 
Gustavo Penades, thereby replacing the ad-hoc combination of his 
private secretary and his wife who oversaw the first round. He is 
also reportedly receiving advice from Ramiro Agulla, a high profile 
 
political marketing expert from Argentina. 
 
 
 
¶5. (U) A key note Lacalle's run-off campaign will be turning the FA 
parliamentary majority from a negative factor into a motivational 
rallying call. A significant proportion of the electorate fear that 
a Mujica presidency combined with a parliamentary majority could 
result in a sharp turn to the left: especially given the dominance 
of Mujica's MPP faction with the FA itself (it accounts for 37 
percent of the FA's presence in the Senate and 50 percent of its 
share in the house). Keenly aware of this concern, Lacalle is 
repositioning his proposed presidency as a moderate influence. 
While a Blanco presidency facing an FA majority sounds like a 
recipe for political deadlock, Lacalle insists his government will 
be based on negotiation and has already proposed the campaign 
slogan: "The balance is in your hands."  And in fact, Lacalle 
emphasizes in his speeches that the dominance of one party, in both 
the executive and legislative branches, is highly unusual in the 
Uruguayan context. 
 
 
 
¶6. (U) To maximize the effectiveness of this approach, Blanco party 
figures are focusing on Mujica's biggest drawbacks - his relatively 
weak command of economic and foreign policy (pronouncing as 
hypocritical his stated intent to have Astori handle economic 
policy) and the unpredictability and variability of his policy 
pronouncements (pointing to the Frente Amplio's own discomfort with 
Mujica's impromptu comments). Opposition figures are pounding on 
their disbelief that Mujica can be a continuation of Vazquez, and 
the more conservative press (most notably daily El Pais) continues 
to run editorials urging Uruguayans to come to their senses as they 
get ready to vote for the man who will fill the highest office in 
the land. With Mujica's perceived shortcomings accordingly 
highlighted, Lacalle is presenting himself as the only candidate 
with the capacity to govern. To emphasize the message, Lacalle 
absented himself from a recent Blanco tour of the interior, 
calculating that his non-appearance would symbolically mark his 
aspiration to be president of "all Uruguayans." 
 
 
 
The Frente Amplio Seeks to Preserve their Advantage 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------------------- 
 
 
 
¶7.  (U) Immediately after the first round, the FA began efforts to 
ensure that the generally left-leaning voters in Argentina will 
return again for the runoff; the GOA once again has declared a 
holiday, and the Buquebus ferry/bus line is offering cheap fares, 
with the FA offering to pay the remainder for those who need it. 
Mujica continued to emphasize his move to the center on economic 
policies and intention to continue the successful policies of the 
Vazquez government. The leftist press are playing up the small 
number of Colorado party figures who have said they will not 
support Lacalle. 
 
 
 
¶8. With Mujica in such an apparently strong position, many in the 
FA wish to simply freeze the campaign, avoid direct attacks on 
Lacalle and preserve their advantage.  Mujica, however, has been 
vocal in his insistence in emphasizing the differences between 
himself and Lacalle, and he has broken party ranks by launching a 
tirade of personal insults in Lacalle's direction.  Amongst other 
declarations, Mujica stated that the National Party harbors secret 
coup plotters; that a Lacalle presidency would be return to days of 
economic collapse and authoritative government; and he compared 
Lacalle to the Spanish dictator Franco. Lacalle, in contrast, has 
so far limited himself to a vague allusion to Mujica's 
"undemocratic" guerilla past.  Whether this relative restraint will 
hold remains to be seen. 
 
 
 
Each and Every One 
 
------------------ 
 
¶9. (U) Every vote will be crucial. Predictably, key members of the 
team (including running mate Larranaga and new ally Bordaberry) 
swung north immediately after the elections to capitalize on the 
election results in the Interior - where the combined 
Blanco-Colorado vote exceeded Mujica's count in every department in 
the country with the exception of populous Montevideo and 
 
neighboring Canelones.  Lacalle himself went to Buenos Aires to try 
to shore up support among the expatriates there as well. Behind the 
Frente Amplio's indignity about having to participate in a run-off 
at all lies a small fear that it will be difficult to get the 
turnout needed from the poor, remote residents, and those who live 
abroad. Note: Even with mandatory voting, turnout in the first 
round was 90%. End note.  Interest in maintaining turnout was also 
likely behind the decision of the umbrella labor organization 
PIT-CNT to work explicitly for Mujica in the second round of 
voting.  Discussion was intense however, and significant sectors 
(notably the Montevideo Department public sector union) decided to 
stay out of the campaigning in order to maintain the traditional 
independence from political parties. 
 
 
 
A Political Gift for the Blancos? 
 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (U) Mujica has not been as vulnerable as the Blanco party had 
hoped to charges that the Frente government has failed in critical 
areas of security and education.  The security issue came to the 
fore on November 1, however, when a recluse named Saul Feldman was 
discovered to have a huge cache of weapons and ammunition in a 
Montevideo neighborhood. He died in a subsequent raid on his nearby 
home in a beach town, possibly by his own hand, but only after 
killing a policeman.  Uruguayans have been transfixed by the news 
of the event, including some failures by the Ministry of Interior - 
a raid perceived to be botched, the discovery of Uruguayan military 
weapons at the site, and the existence of state identification 
documents issued under various names. Many began to voice doubts 
that this was really an arms trafficking operation (traffickers are 
believed to move military weapons quickly, and would not store 
ammunition), and both ex-President Battlle and Lacalle have raised 
the ante by individually suggesting that Feldman's cache was 
destined for "political" purposes. Ex- Tupamaro Mujica has angrily 
dismissed the inference as a crude attempt to damage his campaign, 
and Lacalle's words on the Feldman have been cited as the cause of 
the FA having swiftly backed out of a planned television debate. 
 
 
 
COMMENT 
 
------------- 
 
 
 
¶11. (C) Lacalle continues to struggle to gain and keep the 
initiative.  As the success of Lacalle's presidential bid involves 
convincing people who voted for one candidate in October to vote 
for his main rival mere weeks later, there is little doubt about 
the degree of difficulty involved. The decision to play off the 
concern that many feel towards the notion of Mujica having command 
of both parliament and the executive office makes strategic sense. 
Mujica is, in fact, unpredictable and inexperienced in governing, 
and the Frente Amplio has become accustomed to governing without 
consultation with the opposition on important topics.  However, 
convincing enough voters to make a difference will be a challenge. 
End Comment. 
MATTHEWMAN