Uruguayans vote in tight race for president [Video]

Uruguayans voted Sunday in what looks to be a tight election, with the leftist alliance of celebrated ex-president Jose “Pepe” Mujica hoping to reclaim the country’s top job after five years of right-wing rule.

Former history teacher Yamandu Orsi of the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) is going 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.

“As long as things improve here in Uruguay and it stays afloat, that’s enough for me,” said one voter, 34-year-old meat industry worker Nicolas Clavijo.

Orsi, 57, is seen as the understudy of 89-year-old Mujica, a former 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 needed to avoid a runoff but ahead of the 26.7 percent of …