URUGUAYANS opted not to overturn 137 contentious articles of President Luis Lacalle Pou’s law of urgent consideration (LUC) by the narrowest of margins in a referendum on Sunday.

With 99 per cent of the ballots counted, 48.82 per cent of the votes were in favour of overturning the measures and 49.9 per cent were against. 

In a country where voting is compulsory, the 1.32 per cent of ballots papers left blank were added to the latter, thus giving them an unassailable 51.22 per cent margin of victory. 

According to the electoral authorities, 85 per cent of the 2.6 million people eligible to participate in the poll did so.

The result demonstrates the polarisation of public opinion in the South American country.

The referendum was held under the provisions of Uruguayan legislation that enables a vote to be called if 25 per cent of the registered electorate petition demand it.

Given the variety and complexity of the issues contained in the LUC, the referendum was seen as an opinion poll on the popularity of Mr Lacalle and his right-wing coalition government. 

The closeness of the result mirrors the election in 2019, when he became president by the smallest majority ever recorded in Uruguay’s electoral history. 

Nevertheless, he will now feel emboldened to press on with his pro-market reforms in the areas of security, health, education, energy, public administration and labour rights, though he will be under no illusions about the strength of a renewed and revitalised opposition.

The articles of the LUC relating to restrictions on the right to strike, including the criminalisation of picketing in certain circumstances, had incentivised the PIT-CNT trade union confederation to become one of the main protagonists in gaining the requisite number of signatories to trigger the referendum. 

Speaking at the confederation’s headquarters in Montevideo, Amira Fagundez, the president of the Secondary School Teachers Federation (Fenapes), said that the referendum had been a celebration of direct democracy and that the government could not keep turning its back on half of the population. 

Fernando Pereira, the former leader of PIT-CNT and now president of the opposition Frente Amplio (Broad Front), said: “With all the power, with all the media, with everything in their favour, we still got a draw — and with 15 minutes more, we would have won.”