General elections were held in

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

on 26 October 2014, alongside a

constitutional referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a direct vote by the electorate (rather than their representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either binding (resulting in the adoption of a new policy) or advis ...

. As no presidential candidate received an absolute majority in the first round of voting, a runoff took place on 30 November.

Primary elections Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...

to determine each party's presidential candidate had been held on 1 June. Incumbent President

José Mujica José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano (20May 193513May 2025) was a Uruguayan politician, revolutionary and farmer who served as the 40th president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. A former guerrilla with the Tupamaros, he was tortured and imprisone ...

was ineligible to run owing to a constitutional limit on serving consecutive terms. The governing Broad Front nominated Mujica's predecessor,

Tabaré Vázquez Tabaré Ramón Vázquez Rosas (; 17 January 19406 December 2020) was a Uruguayan politician and oncologist who served as the 39th and 41st President of Uruguay from 2005 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2020. During his political career, Vázquez was a ...

, as its candidate. Vázquez came within a few thousand votes of a first-round victory and advanced to the runoff with National Party candidate Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, son of former president Luis Alberto Lacalle de Herrera. In the runoff, Vázquez was returned to office with the widest margin since the run-off system was first implemented in 1999. The Broad Front also maintained its majority in the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

, winning 50 of the 99 seats.

Electoral system

The president was elected using the

two-round system The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...

, with a run-off required if no candidate received 50% of the vote in the first round. The 30 members of the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

were elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency. The 99 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected by proportional representation in 19 multi-member constituencies based on the

departments Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military * Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

. Seats are allocated using the

highest averages method The highest averages, divisor, or divide-and-round methods are a family of Apportionment (politics), apportionment rules, i.e. algorithms for fair division of seats in a legislature between several groups (like Political party, political parti ...

. The elections were held using the double simultaneous vote method, whereby voters cast a single vote for the party of their choice for the presidency, the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives.

Candidates

Presidential primaries Each of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five territories of the United States holds either primary elections or caucuses to help nominate individual candidates for president of the United States. This process is designed t ...

were held on 1 June to select the candidates. The following list shows the presidential candidates elected to take part in the October presidential elections.

Campaign

There were around 250,000 new voters in this election, many of them not used to traditional media. Campaign managers and advertising agents took notice of this new trend, and implemented an important portion of their campaign via

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

Opinion polls

Results

Within the Broad Front coalition, the

Movement of Popular Participation Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger co ...

won six seats in the Senate, the Liber Seregni Front won three and the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

won two. Following the second round of the presidential elections, the Broad Front gained an extra seat in the Senate, giving them a majority, as Vice President Raúl Fernando Sendic Rodríguez automatically became a member.

By department

References

External links

Electoral Process in Uruguay 2014-2015
Electoral Court of Uruguay {{Uruguayan elections Parliamentary elections in Uruguay Presidential elections in Uruguay

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Tabaré Vázquez