When it was barely dawn on election night, and before the final tally was in, the outgoing president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, congratulated his political opponent, Yamandú Orsi:

I called @OrsiYamandu to congratulate him as President-elect of our country and to put myself at his disposal to begin the transition as soon as he understands it is pertinent.

@LuisLacallePou

The region may find this civic tweet striking, which in Uruguay is almost rule. Uruguay is an exceptional democratic model in Latin America, with a governance based on consensus, respect for fundamental rights and a citizenry that participates politically.

The country has a strong and fairly stable party system. It has two of the oldest political parties on the continent: the Colorado Party and the National Party (both founded in 1836); and, much more recently, and further to the left, the Frente Amplio, founded in 1971.

In Sunday's run-off election, the election was decided between the left-wing Frente Amplio and the center-right coalition of whites and reds. Less than 100,000 votes separated the victory of Yamandú Orsi (Frente Amplio) from the defeat of Álvaro Delgado (National Party in coalition) in the run-off election, only four percentage points difference. As has happened recently in other societies, the result speaks of a clearly polarized society, divided into two poles of almost identical dimension. But what makes Uruguay so different?

Ideological polarization is clearly perceived in Uruguay, and although centrist positions tend to dominate in the preferences of the electorate, ideological positions are present in the discussion and the campaign.

For Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori, polarization is defined by a centrifugal process that breaks the consensus of a society. While it can create problems for governance, it would also have beneficial effects: by clarifying alternative political options, it creates strong links between parties and voters and can instill accountability mechanisms that force parties to remain responsive to changing voter preferences.

As long as the conflict does not exceed a certain threshold, polarization would have beneficial effects, with a educational and cohesive role, capable of creating solid ties between the institutions and their militancy.

We were in Montevideo to follow the first round of the presidential election as part of the team of the Observatorio Complutense de Desinformación. Contrary to what has been seen in electoral processes of this 2024, there were not too many reports of disinformation: the Observatory's project counted 24 incidents up to the ballot. They seem few in comparison with the more than 200 incidents in the Venezuelan presidential 2024 or those identified in other elections in the region.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the electoral observation was the great spirit of democratic coexistence where the front-amplistas, whites (National Party), colorados and other forces campaigned in the street, in adjacent stalls; or celebrated their results on the road, a few meters away from each other.

This mutual tolerance facilitates the social construction of reality, and the acceptance of the rules of the game and shared facts. In one of the polling stations we attended, candidate Alvaro Delgado, from the white party, arrived to vote. There was a long line and the manager of the voting table went out to invite him to pass. The candidate cordially declined and stood at the end of the line, waiting his turn. What seems to be a veniality and the "should be", becomes a remarkable fact for its exceptionality in terms of Latin American politics.

It is no coincidence that Uruguay's democracy is ranked among the first in the world and is a clear leader in the Latin American region. International IDEA (The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) has been conducting since 1975 a global evaluation of the state of democracy in the countries evaluated in 173 countries; this year, both Uruguay and Germany appear in first place in terms of political representation.

The global state of democracy is derived from a set of data that measures 165 indicators grouped into four categories of democratic performance: political representation, human rights, rule of law and political participation. Uruguay ranks highly in all categories.

But beyond important indicators in the Building of democracy, a fundamental aspect is the fulfillment of the "unwritten laws" referred to by Levitski and Ziblatt in their work How do democracies die?. These laws are none other than mutual respect for the adversary and for the rules of the democratic game, which can be seen in Uruguay when at the time of giving their speeches, both in the first and second round, the candidates and their running mates thanked, first of all, democracy, the referee and the system, without forgetting the contender.

The informal norms of democracy may not be written in the Constitution or a particular law, but they are essential to the stability and healthy functioning of a democratic system. They have to do with mutual tolerance among political leaders, even if they disagree on ideas.

It also implies democratic restraint of actors, where leaders refrain from acting in ways that could undermine democracy, with a long-term vision. The popular President Luis Lacalle Pou, for example, was never below 50% approval, but he did not pretend to change the rules of the game that would allow him an immediate reelection.

Neither did the popular Pepe Mujica, from the other ideological side, in his time. It seems obvious, but they are exceptions in a continent where the norm has been to seek to change the rules in order to seek reelection.

All this translates into a political coexistence that allows for smooth alternations in power, which ends up reinforcing public confidence in the institutions and the continuity of the republic.

In order to measure polarization, it is common to inquire about political opinions. A very common question is to ask the respondent to position himself ideologically on a continuous line between 1 and 10. Although this question can be very useful for the purpose of identifying the ideological curve of a society, it does not measure a characteristic of the most recent polarization processes. For beyond the traditional conception of ideological polarization there would be another modality in which political adversaries are identified negatively and co-partisans positively. This is what has been called "affective polarization", which is very present in several societies, such as the American and Spanish ones.

Affective polarization is different from the ideological division present in Uruguay, which is much more negative, and manifests itself when political actors consider their opponents as existential or illegitimate enemies, which erodes cooperation and respect for democratic rules.

When the winning candidate Yamandú Orsí augurs in his victory speech a "long life to our republican and democratic system" he is abiding by some of those unwritten rules of democracy that make it more vigorous and from which so much needs to be learned.

What makes Uruguay different is, precisely, this set of practices that have turned the country into a democratic model in the region. Yamandú will have obstacles and difficulties, one of which is derived from the difficulty of governing without having achieved a clear parliamentary majority; but the continuity of Uruguay's virtuous democratic model will depend on his commitment and capacity to preserve these democratic habits.