Who is Yamandú Orsi, the dolphin Pepe Mujica who will take over as president in Uruguay

This 57-year-old history teacher who was twice mayor of Canelones, the most populous department in the country after Montevideo, defeated its rival from the center-right official coalition ÁAlvaro Delgado.

With Orsi’s victory, the Frente Amplio will return on March 1 to the presidential seat that it lost in 2020 after governing for 15 years.

Mujica, a leader of the left and president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, long ago saw that Orsi had the qualities to become his political heir and bet heavily on him. “I’ve known him for 30 or so years, I saw him become a man, from the beginning”he recalled in the final stretch of the campaign, highlighting the “negotiator” skills of his dolphin, whom he called a “wizard” to achieve agreements.

Orsi also has an “advantage”, according to Mujica: it understands the urban country and the rural country. “I have confidence in him, because what he did in Canelones was wonderful,” He gave his opinion on Orsi’s management at the head of that department, which for Mujica is “a sample of the country in small form” because it brings together “all the problems that Uruguay has.”

Of Spanish and Italian descent, educated in public school and committed to social equality promoted by the State, Orsi embodies much of Uruguayan DNA.

Francisco Vernazza, the political communication expert in charge of the campaign that brought Mujica to the Presidency, highlighted Orsi’s profile as a “team builder.”

“Calm, open, with empathy with the rural. It is the synthesis of the identity of the Frente Amplio, of that deeply popular thing,” Vernazza told the newspaper El País before the first electoral round on October 27.

From teaching to politics

Yamandú Ramón Antonio Orsi Martínez was born in a rural area of ​​Canelones on June 13, 1967 in a house without electricity and moved to the departmental capital at the age of five, when his father became ill and could not continue working in the field.

He often says that he grew up in a home in which “nothing was left over” but “nothing was missing” either, that his older sister taught him to read, and that he spent his childhood playing soccer.

In 1991 he graduated as a history teacher and taught in high schools in towns and small cities until 2005. when he began his career in the Canelones government, first as general secretary of the commune for almost a decade, and then, since 2015, as mayor for two periods.

He resigned for the June party elections, which he won with more than 60% of the votes, far surpassing the former mayor of Montevideo Carolina Cosse, who had the support of communists and socialists and became his running mate.

Previously, he was the subject of what he considered a “political maneuver” to damage his candidacy, when a trans sex worker accused him of having attacked her in 2014, a complaint that turned out to be false and promoted by another trans woman, a member of the ruling National Party. Both are serving court sentences.

Altar boy and folklore dancer

As a young man, Orsi tended his family’s store and was also an altar boy in the Catholic Church and a folklore dancer.

Politics was not talked about at home, but the democratic restoration after the civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985) led him to become a soldier on the left. In 1989 he joined the Popular Participation Movement founded by Mujica, today the main sector of the Broad Front.

In addition to Mujica, Orsi had Lucía Topolansky as referenceswife of the former president and vice president of the Republic (2017-2020); and Marcos Carámbula, his predecessor in the mayor of Canelones and with whom he worked hand in hand for 10 years.

“Yamandú is a very intelligent man; he always learns and listens, he is very close, he has great sensitivity,” said Carámbula. “He has all the conditions to be a great president.”

Orsi was married twice, the last time to Laura Alonsperez. With her he became the father, at the age of 45, of twins Victorio and Lucía.