1994 Uruguayan general election

General elections were held in Uruguay on 27 November 1994, alongside a double referendum.[1] The result was a narrow victory for the Colorado Party, which won the most seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and received the most votes in the presidential election.

Tabaré Vázquez of the Broad Front received the most votes of any presidential candidate. However, former president Julio Maria Sanguinetti returned to office by virtue of the Colorados receiving the most votes of any party. Under the multi-candidate Ley de Lemas system in effect at the time, the highest-finishing candidate of the party that won the most votes was elected president. Vázquez finished with just 12,100 fewer votes than the combined vote for the runner-up National Party. At the time, this was the best showing for a third party since the presidential system was reinstituted with the 1967 constitution.

They were the last presidential elections conducted under the Ley de Lemas system, which had been used for much of the 20th century and had been reinstituted in 1967. In 1996, a referendum amended the constitution to restrict each party to a single presidential candidate, effective from the 1999 elections.

Results

President

Party	Candidate	Votes	%
Colorado Party	Julio María Sanguinetti	500,760	24.7
	Jorge Batlle Ibáñez	102,551	5.1
	Jorge Pacheco Areco	51,935	2.6
	Total	656,426	32.3
National Party	Alberto Volonté	301,655	14.9
	Juan Andrés Ramírez	264,255	13.0
	Carlos Julio Pereyra	65,650	3.2
	Total	633,384	31.2
Broad Front–Progressive Encounter	Tabaré Vázquez	621,226	30.6
New Space	Rafael Michelini	104,773	5.2
Green Party	Rodolfo Tálice	5,498	0.25
Other parties (incl. candidate Roberto Canessa)		7,972	0.35
Invalid/blank votes		101,337	–
Total		2,130,616	100
Registered voters/turnout		2,330,154	91.4
Source: Nohlen

General Assembly

Party	Votes	%	Chamber of Deputies		Senate
			Seats	+/–	Seats	+/–
Colorado Party	656,426	32.3	32	+2	11	+2
National Party	633,384	31.1	31	–8	10	–2
Broad Front–Progressive Encounter	621,226	30.8	31	+10	9	+2
New Space	104,773	5.2	5	–4	1	–1
Green Party	5,498	0.25	0	–	0	–
Other parties	7,972	0.35	0	–	0	–
Invalid/blank votes	101,337	–	–	–	–	–
Total	2,130,616	100	99	0	31	+1
Registered voters/turnout	2,330,154	91.4	–	–	–	–
Source: Nohlen

Further reading

• Mieres, Pablo. Elecciones 1994: una nueva fase de la transformación electoral en el Uruguay (PDF) (in Spanish). Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.

References

1. Nohlen, D (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume II, p494 ISBN 978-0-19-928358-3

External links

• Politics Data Bank at the Social Sciences School – Universidad de la República (Uruguay)