Laura Klein | Latin America Fellow
Image sourced from Rosina Peixoto via Wikimedia Commons.
On 27 October 2024, Uruguayans headed to the polls to vote to elect a successor to the sitting centre-right President Luis Lacalle Pou of the National Party. Following this first round of voting, the centre-left candidate Yamandú Orsi has come out on top, with the second and third candidates splitting the conservative vote. The country will have a deciding run-off election later in November, as one of this year’s final elections in a mammoth year for democracy in the region.
Uruguay’s 2024’s election cycle takes place during a period of unprecedented violence and corruption across broader Latin America. Mexico’s recent election was named ‘the most violent election campaign’ in the country’s history. This can be seen in the 240 per cent increase in political violence in three years, including assassinations of political figures and government officials. Venezuela, in the lead up to and since the elections of late July, has borne witness to heightened political repression and human rights violations that have shocked international spectators.
With these episodes receiving comparatively more international coverage, one cannot be faulted for dismissing the election in Uruguay as another Latin American election with similar violent, repressive characteristics. However, this would do the country a great disservice.
Uruguayan politics are largely without the kind of violence, polarised discourse, and populist candidates that have become a staple of politics in the region. Although this election season has lacked the fanfare of its regional neighbours’, Uruguay’s has been mostly overlooked by the international press. Neglecting stories such as Uruguay’s can distort the image of, and amplify existing biases towards, such stigmatised regions as Latin America. This silence ultimately disregards an opportunity that would expose a global audience to the depth and breath of Latin American experiences.
Uruguay is a small state nestled on the edge of the Rio de Plata between Brazil and Argentina, two of Latin America’s major centres of influence. The country shares a 20th century history similar to others in the region. It suffered alongside its neighbours through over a decade of brutal military dictatorship to be brought back to democracy in the mid 1980s. Uruguay, from then and until recently, has also followed its neighbours through economic crises, including a great banking crisis in the early 2000s that pushed many into poverty. However, unlike others in the region, today the state is home to stable democracy and a sought-after economy for international investment.
What distinguishes Uruguay’s experience from its neighbours? Many commentators point to the state’s robust social safety net that provides citizens a relative level of security. This is significant as when one can rely on a minimum level of comfort, robustness and trust in domestic political and economic systems.
Furthermore, unlike the fractured party systems in neighbouring Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay’s parties are consistently strong and embedded in society, similar to Australia. This fosters a moderate atmosphere and a different trajectory away from the type of populism recently experienced in the region, such as with Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro and Argentina’s current President Javier Milei.
The country’s experience can also be distinguished by the nation’s distinct Uruguayan culture. Outside of its political and economic capacities praised by development banks and agencies, important social commentaries also have a strong influence on the state.
Uruguayan’s experience levels of happiness consistently greater than other state’s like France and Korea, despite their higher living standards.
As an Uruguayan in Montevideo explained to me, this is a result of the cultural differences between Uruguay and others in the region. The words of Uruguay's beloved and most internationally influential President José Pepe Mujica, known affectionately by all as Pepe, best express an Uruguayan common philosophy,
"What is the legacy of a guy in the universe? We're less than a louse. The legacy is to have lived on the handle, with successes and mistakes. To succeed is not to have silver, it is to rise every time one falls. " (translated from Spanish) *
Uruguay nurtures an ideology of calm and amity alongside accomplishment. Inherent to this is an absence from international news cycles. The relative quiet witnessed from commentators is a positive sign of functioning democratic machinery. However this is not wholly positive. A number of different institutional and societal level variables that have contributed to Uruguay’s cultural, democratic and economic stability have been highlighted here. Without the creation of such spaces, the richness of our potential learnings as an otherwise ignorant international audience is stunted.
The neglect of an Uruguayan perspective on internationally relevant events, such as an election, is a loss for international observers. Left to swim around in the shallow end, we are refused an opportunity to appreciate Latin America as more complex than what the routinely negative headlines would have us believe.
Given the anxieties of the region's earlier 2024 election experiences, Uruguay’s turn to take to the polls was not just a respite from relative chaos but an exemplar inviting civil political conversation into a region and a world that feels day-by-day less welcoming of such discussion. We should take notice.
Laura Klein is the Latin America Fellow for Young Australians in International Affairs. She recently completed her Bachelor of International Relations at the Australian National University majoring and minoring in Spanish and Latin American Studies, and has since been accepted to a Masters program at the London School of Economics where she looks forward to further engaging in research. She has a deep affection and respect for the Latin American region and in her writing, strives to destigmatise and promote the opportunities that abound in Latin America, especially to an Australian audience.
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