Uruguay readies for polls with left hoping for comeback [Video]

Uruguayans go to the polls Sunday with the leftist alliance of celebrated ex-president Jose Mujica hoping to reclaim the country’s top job five years after a right-wing victory based on concerns over crime and taxes.

Former history teacher Yamandu Orsi of the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) will go head-to-head with ex-veterinarian Alvaro Delgado of the National Party, a member of outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou’s center-right Republican Coalition.

Orsi, 57, is seen as the understudy of 89-year-old “Pepe” Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla lionized as “the world’s poorest president” during his 2010-2015 rule because of his modest lifestyle.

Orsi had garnered 43.9 percent of the October 27 first-round vote — short of the 50-percent cutoff to avoid a runoff but ahead of the 26.7 percent of ballots cast for Delgado, 55.

The pair came out tops from a crowded field of 11 candidates seeking to replace Lacalle Pou, who …