Pedro Bordaberry

In 2009, Bordaberry was selected as the Colorado Party's candidate for the Presidential election.[8]

On 21 March 2009, Bordaberry was formally accepted as Presidential candidate for Vamos Uruguay at a ceremony in a stadium in Montevideo attended by an estimated 7,000 supporters.[9] In June 2009, Bordaberry paused his work for the legal practice at which he had been active to focus on the Presidential campaign.[10]

In June 2009, Bordaberry was publicly criticised by Colorado Party colleague Luis Antonio Hierro López, a previous ministerial colleague also running for President, due to his surname.[11] In a muted response, Bordaberry noted that Hierro had previously campaigned for Bordaberry as colleagues in government, and had previously been silent about Bordaberry's family background.[11]

In the Presidential vote on 26 October, Bordaberry won 17%, finishing behind the National Party and Broad Front candidates, but increasing the Colorado Party's share of the vote. He endorsed Luis Alberto Lacalle for the second round run-off vote that took place at the end of November 2009.[12]

On November 9, 2013, Bordaberry officially launched his presidential campaign for the 2014 presidential primaries.[13] He hired campaign advisers who had worked for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.[14]

On June 1, 2014, he prevailed in the Colorado Party primary election with 73.62% of the votes, against Senator José Amorín Batlle and former Senator Manuel Flores Silva.[15][16] In the general election of October, he was in third place with 12.89%, behind Tabaré Vázquez and Luis Lacalle Pou; however, he was re-elected to the Senate.[17]

Bordaberry was elected to the Uruguayan Senate in 2009. In early 2010 Bordaberry called for the establishment of a new university in the interior city of Durazno, with a view to assisting disadvantaged potential students.[18]

In 2017, Bordaberry said that he would not run again for President or Senator in 2019.[19] After the 2019 presidential primaries in which Ernesto Talvi was confirmed as the presidential candidate of the Colorado Party, and in which the newly created Open Cabildo party obtained a high percentage of right-wing votes, several politicians and the media began to speculate on a possible new candidacy of Bordaberry for the Senate, to avoid a drain of Colorado votes in the general election.[20] However, he withdrew after much opposition from party authorities.[21]

Following the inauguration of the Obama Administration in the U.S., Bordaberry said that Uruguayan business leaders seeking to export their goods to the U.S. would encounter a greater degree of protectionism from U.S. officials.[22][23] In August 2009, in the context of continuing, difficult relations with Argentina over trade issues, Bordaberry expressed strong reservations about the Mercosur trade pact, arguing that the Chilean model of pursuing bilateral trade pacts would be preferable for Uruguay.[24]