By EMILIO CAFASSI*
The efforts of the Broad Front in the fight for every vote must also be an act of resistance and the recovery of a memory that recovers the emancipatory handwriting in the torn notebook of history
With mobilization, perseverance, effort and patience, the militants of the Uruguayan Broad Front abandon the committees and move from house to house, to fairs and events, like an army of ants whose movement does not transport leaves stolen from the vegetation, but leaves from the vote. The territory feels the impulse of thousands of enthusiastic people who spread out capillary through the streets and sidewalks, among tents and flags.
However, this fervor is not always reciprocated with the same intensity. It is difficult to assess the social mood and expectations that the election day raises, especially from a distance. The conclusions reached are diametrically opposed, depending on who reflects their experiences. This army of transformative wills lacks the weapons of propaganda and the ammunition of marketing available to the current government, but it imposes itself with an organized presence in any sphere of social and institutional life, including civil society organizations.
Perhaps the real obstacle to overcome is not the coalition voter, but the combination of indifference and disenchantment among a decisive segment of the population. In a global situation marked by surprises and setbacks, heirs to deep dissatisfaction with different and even opposing political administrations, it is prudent to moderate optimism and, at the same time, redouble efforts to increase grassroots activism. It is essential that these efforts not be limited to asking for support, but take advantage of the contact to rebuild a deteriorated hospitality and build a bridge that goes beyond simply inducing people to vote in the five-year period.
The explanation for the political apathy of vast social sectors should not be reduced to material frustrations or expectations for the future, but should also include the institutional component. Representative democracy, designed to exclude those represented from decisions that affect them, discourages participation more than it encourages it, restricting it to the margins of mere formalities.
The repeated attempts at participation and their fruitless results generate frustration and passivity in civil society. Social mobilizations never manage to transcend protest or pressure, because the political regime denies them any institutionalized decision-making intervention, confining them to complaints, the first (but not the only) indicator of which is the spectrum towards which abstention, spoiled votes and blank votes converge. With the exception of the two plebiscites held simultaneously with the national election, to which the Broad Front (FA) regrettably turned its back. In a previous article, I drew attention to the 118.725 voters resulting from the sum of spoiled and blank votes and envelopes with ballots exclusively for the plebiscite. They represent no less than 11,21% of the total votes in favor of the Broad Front, or 5,26% of the total votes counted.
It is certainly not a homogeneous group, although it is undoubtedly more sensitive to rebellion than to the mere electoralism of the traditional parties and their minority satellites. The traditional parties propose a strictly electoral link, based on the seduction of marketing, with representatives who are both professionalized and autonomous.
Meanwhile, the Broad Front oscillates between pure representative continuity and a greater emphasis on rigorous execution of a detailed program, in addition to regular organization and consultation with its militant bases. The more conservative its adherence to the regime appears, the less likely it will be to engage in dialogue with significant segments of a disheartened citizenry.
The right understood well, in the 1990s, that the diversity of actors, covering a wide ideological spectrum, through the law of slogans, the seduction of caudillos and electoral marketing, would not stop the overwhelming growth of a Broad Front that was being installed in the territories and in civil society organizations, proposing participatory and inclusive mediations, not merely electoral, in addition to a critical and transformative program of status quo. That is why the current system was promoted, the result of which is the election, and they were not mistaken.
Of the six national electoral experiences since then, the Broad Front has won all of them, including its worst vote in 2019. The table shows that it has always won against the first and second minorities, represented by the traditional parties, the only ones with a chance of reaching the second round. At first glance, this statement might seem incorrect, but it is worth remembering that the 1999 calculation did not include the 97.943 votes obtained by “Novo Espaço”, led by Rafael Michelini, who was later organically integrated into the Broad Front (no one who has left the Broad Front has managed to survive on the outside until now).
This contrasts with the coalitions of 1999 and 2019, led by the Colorado and Nacional parties, respectively, which, in both cases, wove a hasty and belated carpet of independent slogans with the sole aim of stopping the FA, replicating the rule-changing strategy of three decades ago. A small carpet under which to continue sweeping their dirt. This trajectory is outlined more clearly in the electoral curve derived from the table, outlining the history of each slogan and its relevance in the country's electoral evolution.
Electoral trajectories by slogan in the first round
| Tagline | 1999 | 2004 | 2009 | 2014 | 2019 | 2024 |
| Wide Front | 861.202 | 1.124.761 | 1.105.262 | 1.134.187 | 949.376 | 1.058.625 |
| National Party | 478.980 | 764.739 | 669.942 | 732.601 | 696.452 | 644.638 |
| Colorado party | 703.915 | 231.036 | 392.307 | 305.699 | 300.177 | 385.962 |
It is interesting to note, without discouraging the slightest militant effort to win each vote, the transfer of votes between the first and second rounds in past experiences. We can only analyze four cases, since in 2004 the Broad Front won in the first round, and the current election is still ongoing.
To this end, I created a table that considers the vote movements in the following electoral categories between the two rounds: (i) The Broad Front; (ii) the votes of the effective right-wing coalitions that confronted the Broad Front, measured by the total of the candidate of the second minority (Colorada and Blanca, in each case); (iii) the sum of blank and null votes; (iv) withdrawals; (v) the hypothetical value of a kind of ideal coalition that presupposes the absolute sum of the votes of each slogan.
Difference in votes between the 1st and 2nd round of the election
| Wide Front | Royal Coalition | Blank/Null | Giving up | Ideal Coalition | |
| 1999 | 120.847 | 454.793 | 7.891 | -1.283 | -24.187 |
| 2004 | |||||
| 2009 | 92.376 | 324.568 | 43.731 | -32.723 | -125.099 |
| 2014 | 107.381 | 223.140 | 45.526 | -75.426 | -155.938 |
| 2019 | 202.895 | 492.891 | 3.213 | 43.489 | -99.632 |
| Media | 130.875 | 373.848 | 25.090 | -21.103 | -101.214 |
The first three, which represent the total number of positive votes, increased in the second round. Conversely, the number of withdrawals decreased. This indicates that, in general terms, interest in the decisive moment of the executive branch is increasing (with the exception of the previous election, 2019, which was curiously the worst for the Broad Front).
However, what is most striking is that successive coalitions lose votes in relation to the theoretical support of their electoral bases for their mandatory candidate. Let us pause for a moment. Coalitions have always grown considerably in comparison to the Broad Front, with values that vary between two and almost four times more, but which are smaller in relation to their potential. While the Broad Front grew on average around 130.000 votes, it is likely that the coalition has lost a good part of the 100.000 votes it lost on average along the way.
It is necessary to make a methodological clarification about the tables prepared. It is impossible to build them with the data available on the Electoral Court website, since, at least in public access, the entire series analyzed is not available, nor the details necessary for its preparation. To this end, I resorted to Wikipedia, which standardized general information, to the press – which probably relies on data provided in a discriminatory manner by the Court, as well as to political parties – and to my own articles and documents written in past elections.
The coalitions in the second round, always centered on the two historic conservative parties, have a structural weakness in terms of winning over voters at decisive moments. Perhaps the awareness of this weakness has prevented them from forming a single slogan, which only hypothetically, from an algebraic perspective, would have allowed them to have greater influence over the powers of the State, as I explained in a previous article. This difficulty in winning over voters ends up being a gain for the Broad Front, even though another part of these votes ends up fueling the growth of blank and invalid votes.
On the other hand, it is almost impossible to conceive that the Broad Front voters in the first round will contribute anything to the coalition. In the next round, it is likely that the Broad Front will capitalize on an undetermined fraction of the Broad Front voters. People's Assembly and Fairy, who, despite their simplistic sectarianism, recognize a left-wing ideology in the Broad Front.
It is not unlikely, moreover, that some voters of the recent Sovereign Identity have found refuge among the disenchanted of the FA, attracted by an extravagant and multi-critical discourse, not without aggressiveness “a la mode”. At the same time, the reduction in average dropout reflects a growing interest in the executive branch in particular, as I have argued, perhaps more motivated by fear than by civic conscience.
If the calls to the polls are decisive moments in the configuration of powers and in questioning the relationship between representatives and those they represent, it is the responsibility of the Broad Front to revive this bond with the utmost regularity, without being pressured by electoral deadlines or flexibility in the delegation. On the contrary, it must call for a mobilized and participatory vigil, dedicated to the conquest and defense of new rights and freedoms.
Without this active and attentive bond, all that can be expected is the shadows of disenchantment and the apathy of frustration. The current efforts to fight for every vote must be more than a simple dispute for a seat in the executive tower: an act of resistance and the recovery of a memory that recovers the emancipatory handwriting in the torn notebook of history.
*Emilio Cafassi is senior professor of sociology at the University of Buenos Aires.
Translation: Fernando Lima das Neves.
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