2024-10-31
7 分钟As the US braces itself for next week’s anxiety-inducing vote and Georgians reel at their own controversial ballot result, Andrew Mueller explains why Uruguay has enjoyed a sublimely excitement-free election. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This past weekend there was a parliamentary election in Georgia which has occasioned great tumult and uproar.
Next Tuesday there will be a presidential election in in the United States, which may well occasion similar turmoil and pandemonium as such.
Either would seem obviously the stuff of which foreign desk explainers are made.
Chaotic scenes to clarify, enormous stakes to assess, rumbustious personalities to analyse consequences to take wild guesses at all the fun of the fair, etc.
However, while future foreign desks and or explainers may well come back to either or both the above referenced turbulent polities, this week's will not.
This week's explainer will instead contemplate events and a location which are and please pay careful attention to this disclaimer so you cannot say you were not warned.
Orderly routine and, if we're honest, not tremendously exciting.
There was a parliamentary and presidential election in Uruguay, along with a couple of referendums.
It is the presidential election upon which this explainer will focus, as it furnished such meager drama as there was in that there was an almost, almost interestingly close result which will necessitate a second round of voting on November 24, if you'd care to hang up your Advent calendar.
Nevertheless, listeners may at this point retreat safely from the edges of their seats and relax the grip of the hands which were hanging onto their HA hats.
And this is exactly the point which this explainer wishes to make.
We are here not to mock the almost surreal tedium of Uruguay's election, but to celebrate it, to extol it, indeed, as a model to which the world should aspire.
The basics are these, and we apologise in advance if the ensuing somnolent synopsis lulls any listeners into a suggestibly hypnotized fug.
We solemnly promise not to implant any of you with a reflexive urge to cluck like a chicken whenever someone says banana or anything.
Anyway, Incumbent President Louis Lacaille Po, a dull man, is standing down due to being term limited.
He is the son, incidentally, of former President Louis Alberto Lacal, who was also a dull man seeking to replace President Lcal Po are two other dull men, Yamandu Osi, who is centre leftish, and Alvaro Delgado, who is centre rightish.
Both are well educated and abundantly qualified.
Ausi is a former history teacher who has done two stints as intendant or mayor governor of Canalones, a district in Uruguay south which includes resorts, ranches and the further flung suburbs of Montevideo.
Delgado is a qualified vet who has served as a member of parliament a senator and chief of staff to the outgoing president.
The two candidates are at variance on some stuff, which is why they are running against each other.