Is Uruguay too stable for its own good?

“Safe change that will not be radical.” It is not a political slogan to set pulses racing. Yet a campaign centred on that message was enough for Yamandú Orsi of the Broad Front, the left-wing party, to win the presidential run-off in Uruguay on November 24th. Mr Orsi, a former mayor of Canelones, the state surrounding the capital Montevideo, beat Álvaro Delgado, the former chief of staff to the current centre-right president. Mr Delgado was weighed down by a spate of scandals in his party and a post-pandemic uptick in inflation. He too ran a cautious, centrist campaign. “The centrifugal force [in Uruguayan politics] is towards moderation, towards convergence,” explains Gabriel Oddone, who will be Mr Orsi’s finance minister.