(Bloomberg) — Uruguay’s presidential election will take place next month after no candidate reached the absolute majority needed to win, while a controversial overhaul of the country’s pension system failed to pass .

Broad Front candidate Yamandu Orsi is expected to face former lawmaker Alvaro Delgado of the National Party, the ruling center-right coalition, on November 24, according to local media citing preliminary results. Orsi received 41.4% of the vote to Delgado’s 27.8%, with nearly 71% of polling stations reporting to the electoral court at 12:10 a.m. local time on Monday.

Candidates representing the other members of the coalition – the Colorado Party, Open Forum and the Independent Party – collectively received 20% of the vote.

“Let’s make one last effort with more enthusiasm than ever” to win the runoff election, Orsi told supporters in Montevideo. “Uruguay must grow, produce more and take much better care of its people. The Uruguayan people deserve to live better.

Votes on two proposed constitutional reforms, known locally as plebiscites, which would have allowed police to search homes at night by court order and would have radically changed the social security system, fell short of a majority absolutely necessary to be adopted. Only about 37% of Uruguayans voted in favor of reforming the pension system.

The failure of the plebiscite on social security raises a cloud of uncertainty which weighs on Uruguayan assets and on the economic program of the next government. The measure threatened to widen the budget deficit by imposing higher pension spending and would have eliminated pension funds whose $23 billion in assets are the lifeblood of local capital markets.

Sunday’s vote paves the way for a competitive runoff. Even if the outgoing coalition’s vote share exceeds that of the Broad Front, a small percentage of these voters are expected to support the left party in November.

The Broad Front sought to exploit anxiety over violent crime and the post-pandemic recovery that has not affected all Uruguayans. But Delgado, 55, is benefiting from tailwinds from an economy expected to grow as much as 3.5% this year and the high popularity of President Luis Lacalle Pou.

Orsi, 57, served two terms as governor of Uruguay’s second-most populous department. The former history professor campaigned to revive an economy whose average annual growth has barely exceeded 1% over the past decade. Orsi’s policies include tax incentives to attract investment, industrial policy to support the agriculture and high-tech sectors, and a less aggressive overhaul of the social security system than sought by the unions that supported the plebiscite.

His likely finance minister, economist Gabriel Oddone, said he would seek a primary budget surplus and maintain the inflation targeting regime put in place by the current administration.

Deglado, who was a top aide to Lacalle Pou before resigning to run for president, campaigned under the slogan “re-elect good government,” in reference to the continuation of his former government’s pro-business policies. boss. His Finance Minister, Diego Labat, who previously headed the central bank, wants to accelerate growth by increasing private investment and opening the economy to more competition.

“We want to be a political project that unites Uruguayans. I am convinced that we will represent much more than the voters of the coalition,” Delgado, flanked by the other presidential candidates of the coalition, said at an event in the capital.

The winner of the November 24 runoff will begin a five-year term in March 2025.

(Updated with latest preliminary results and comments from Orsi and Delgado in paragraphs 4 and 12)

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