If you only have a few seconds, read these lines:

• 44 thousand messages were registered on Twitter in Argentina about the Uruguayan elections.
• The journalist Hernán Brienza was the author of the most shared tweet, followed by a publication by Agustín Laje.
• The word “Lacalle” was present in 38% of the messages, “Martínez”, in 8%.

The second round of the Uruguayan elections happened last Sunday in order to choose the next president for the next five years. The first election happened on October 27, when the Daniel Martínez-Graciela Villar ticket (Frente Ampla) surpassed 39% (949,376 votes) and Luis Lacalle Pou-Beatriz Argimon (Partido Nacional) reached 28.6% (696,452 votes). According to the current legislation in Uruguay, it is necessary to obtain more than 50% of the votes to avoid a second round.

Lacelle was able to stay ahead in the voting by 28 thousand votes, with the sum of the opposition. However, since the difference between the two is smaller than the observed votes (35,229, which are not considered for the primary ballot), the Electoral Court announced that the final result will be released when the departmental ballot finishes. This will happen between the next Thursday and Friday.

This topic was the cover of some of the main communication vehicles in the country, such as Clarín, La Nación and Página/12, and was one of the trending topics in Argentina. Chequeado analyzed the repercussion on Twitter around the keywords. Here are the main results.

Between the start of the elections, at 8 a.m. on November 24, and the same time the followeing day, Chequeado found 44 thousand messages about the topic shared on Twitter in Argentina. The peak of tweets happened at 10:50 p.m., the moment when the difference between the candidates was disclose with 97.7% of the ballot tallied.

Interactions on Twitter about the elections in Uruguay

Interactions on Twitter about the elections in Uruguay, measured via Trendsmap, from November 24 at 8 a.m. Until the following day at the same timeu

The most used hashtags were “#eleccionesuruguay” (“elections in Uruguay”, with 14%), “#uruguaydecide” (“Uruguay decides”, with 10.1%), “#uruguay” (“Uruguay”, with 6%) and “#elecciones2019” (“Elections 2019”, with 1.9%). The next ones in the ranking were the hashtags promoted by the candidates themselves: “#Martínezpresidente” (1.8%), a hashtag that uses the official account of the Frente Ampla in its messages (for example, see here); and “#ahorasi” (“now we’re talking”, with 1.4%), which is used by the candidate for the Partido Nacional in his publications (for example, see here).

The most used word in the messages about the vote was “uruguai” (present in 71% of the tweets). It was followed by “Lacalle” (38%), “Pou” (33%), “presidente” (15%), “direita” (14%) and “esquerda” (11%). “Martínez” was mentioned in 8% of the messages.

On the Argentinian Twitter, the most shared tweet was made by the journalist Hernán Brienza (@hernanbrienza), who criticized some analysis about the electoral results in Uruguay, in Argentina and in Bolivia. According to Brienza, there is “intellectual dishonesty” in the “liberal right in Latin America” because “if Lacalle wins in Uruguay by one point, that’s an overwhelming victory… If Macri loses by 10, that’s technically a draw… If Evo wins by more than 10, that’s fraud”. He obtasined 3.9 thousand shares and was the most active account about the topic.

Tweet:

If Lacalle wins in Uruguay by one point, that’s an overwhelming victory… If Macri loses by 10, that’s technically a draw… If Evo wins by more than 10, that’s fraud… Intellectual dishonesty is the exclusive property of the liberal right in Latin America.

The second most retweeted message was made by the president of the Fundación Libre, Agustín Laje (@AgustinLaje). He said that “political destabilization” would begin in Uruguay if the left lost, and added a photo with two screenshots of the newspaper “El Observador” (Uruguay). The third most retweeted message was made by “el coya” (@elcoya1977), stating that Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia will have opposing governments to the president-elect in Argentina, Alberto Fernández.

The tweet with the most replies was made by the account of Dr. Victor Tutú (@victorfyt), with 50 thousand followers and opposing the Peronism, stating that he would like to move to Uruguay if the Partido Nacional won. “If @LuisLacallePou wins today in Uruguay, I’ll be that much closer to emigrating. I don’t want any more Peronism/populism/fascism for myself or for my family, and I don’t want to be robbed anymore. It won’t happened immediately, but it’ll happen. Please save a spot for me, Uruguayans”, the said, and obtained many replies agreeing with his words.

The Frente Ampla has been governing Uruguay for fifteen years (with the administrations of Tabaré Vázquez, José Mujica and again Tabaré Vázquez), and Lacalle Pou is the son of former president Alberto Lacalle Herrera, who governed between 1990 and 1995.

According to the last INDEC report about commercial exchange in Argentina, from October 2018 until October 2019, Uruguay was the second biggest destination of Argentinian exportations for the Mercosur (8.6%), behind only Brazil (82.7%). Regarding imports in the same period, almost 90% originated from Brazil, 6.4% from Paraguay, and 3.9% from Uruguay.

* The Digital Democracy Room is a project of FGV DAPP in Brazil in partnership with Chequeado, Linterna Verde and Ojo Público. It’s goal is to monitor and analyze the digital conversations regarding the electoral context.

The analysis is available the website of Chequeado here.