In 2005 member organizations of Progressive Encounter and New Majority (essentially Nuevo Espacio) merged into the front, and the coalition took the name of the larger force, Frente Amplio.

The alliance is formed by: Starting with the election of Luis Alberto Lacalle of the National Party in 1989, economic reform designed to quickly modernize the country began, which led to a devaluing of the peso and laws protecting banking secrecy.

However, under the Ley de Lemas system then in use, Vázquez was denied the presidency because the Broad Front finished with the third-most votes of any party, behind the Colorados and Blancos.

Vázquez led the field in the first round but lost the runoff to the Colorados' Jorge Batlle after the two traditional parties set aside their long rivalry to defeat him.

Two of the major reasons the party took power in 2004 was that there was a substantial movement towards more moderate policies and that their support of an increased welfare state created a bond with working-class people tired of the neo-liberalist practices of the end of the twentieth century.

[11][12] When Tabaré Vázquez first took the position of President with a Broad Front majority in the Uruguayan congress, he quickly moved to strengthen diplomatic relations with other Latin American countries, including Cuba.

[14] Uruguay was in need of economic reform when Vazquez stepped into power in 2005, as it was struggling to recover from the crisis of 2002 with a third of the country still below the poverty line.

[19][20] After the 2009 election, former guerrilla José Mujica became president and during his time in power, a number of leftist social policies were passed.

[23] In April 2013 same-sex marriage was passed, supported by the party who took a hard-line stance against the role of the church in legislation on the matter.

[26] A point of consideration for this event is that legalization was not supported by the general population, but the Broad Front still chose to act in favor of it.

During its second mandate, Vazquez faced strong criticism from the opposition because of its refusal to cut political ties with Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, despite allegations of violations of human rights.

With Orsi winning and the party amassing 42.22% of all valid votes,[29] a ticket with Cosse was immediately announced the same night of the primaries, ratifying a previous decision to assemble a formula that would comply with gender parity.