Abstract

LANZARO, Jorge. Uruguay 2014: elecciones competitivas y partido de izquierda predominante. Revista SAAP [online]. 2015, vol.9, n.1, pp.11-41. ISSN 1853-1970.

The 2014 national elections confirm the distinctive features of the Uruguayan democracy: an old plural and competitive party democracy, in which the competition among the leftist Frente Amplio and the two traditional parties persists, while the small parties grow and the effective number of parties increases. As a novelty, in this election the FA eventually attains the status of predominant party, since it reaches the majority in Parliament for the third consecutive time. Besides this place within the government institutions -enabling Tabaré Vázquez's second presidency- the FA also secures a predominant position in Gramsci terms, given the domain that it has achieved in civil society (unions, social organizations, public education and ideological networks). This election has also brought changes in the FA electorate, consolidating its position as a popular left party and strengthening its voting in the interior and in rural districts. At the same time, the FA experiences electoral decrease in its traditional realm of Montevideo and among the middle classes, the more educated citizens and the youth. There has also been a certain enlargement of the center to the left political representation, reflected in the composition of Parliament and markedly in the forces within the FA itself, that will shape the setting in which its third government will work. This article reviews the main features of the Uruguayan democracy and presents a focused analysis on the development of the FA, particularly on the changes brought upon by the 2014 election, while underlining aspects which are valuable to comparative politics.

Keywords : Uruguay - Frente Amplio - competitive democracy - predominant left party -party system.

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