Elected President Tabare Vazquez gestures during a celebration rally in Montevideo after knowing the results of a runoff election, November 30, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
Former president and candidate of the leftist Broad Front coalition, Tabare Vazquez has won the run-off election against his center-right challenger Luis Lacalle Pou, according to the country’s electoral authority.
With 100 percent of the ballots counted the leftist Vazquez won with 56.6 percent of votes to center-right challenger Luis Lacalle Pou with 43.4 percent.
“Uruguayans have said yes … yes to more democracy … yes to better public services,” said Vazquez, speaking to supporters at a victory rally
Lacalle accepted what he called, “the decision of the Uruguayan people” at a press conference late Sunday.
Thousands of ruling Broad Front supporters have been celebrating along a main avenue in the capital, Montevideo, waving party banners and singing.
This result will allow the ruling coalition to roll out a number of its reforms, including a law legalizing the production and sale of marijuana.
Tabare Vazquez, was the country’s first-ever leftist president from 2005 to 2010, and now is set to return to office to continue the coalition’s work of the past ten years after the incumbent Jose Mujica leaves the office.
The unprecedented third consecutive term in office for the coalition also puts Uruguay alongside Brazil and Bolivia as Latin American countries re-electing progressive candidates this year.
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