Uruguay
Elects Former Guerrilla as Next President
Written by Darío Montero
30 November 2009
(IPS) - Left-wing candidate José Mujica was elected president
of Uruguay with nearly 52 percent of the vote Sunday, seven to eight
percentage points ahead of his rival, the right-wing Luis Alberto
Lacalle, according to projections by pollsters.
Mujica,
a former senator and agriculture minister, will take over from socialist
President Tabaré Vázquez on Mar. 1, to head the second
administration of the leftist Broad Front coalition.
The
unseasonal heavy rains of the last few weeks, which have forced
more than 6,000 people out of their homes due to flooding in different
provinces, hardly let up on Sunday, but voters flocked to the polls
anyway in this South American country, where voting is compulsory.
The
mood during Sunday's runoff was much less jubilant than in the first
round on Oct. 25, when the Broad Front garnered just over 48 percent
of the vote, winning a majority in parliament for the second time
in history, but falling short of an all-out victory for Mujica.
By contrast, Lacalle's National Party won 29 percent, and the Colorado
Party took nearly 17 percent.
The
National and Colorado Parties, which were founded in 1836, dominated
the political life of the country until 2005, when the Broad Front
- created in 1971 - won the national elections for the first time
ever.
Observers
consulted by IPS said Sunday's calm was due to the sensation among
voters on the left that the runoff was merely a formality, given
the large proportion of votes won in October and the projections
of the polling companies. However, Montevideo, the capital, exploded
in celebrations when Mujica's triumph was announced.
Nor
will there be any surprises on Mar. 1, when Vázquez hands
over the presidential sash to his successor. Despite their very
different personalities, no major modifications are expected in
terms of the government's economic policy, marked by a strong emphasis
on social justice, or its foreign policy, according to political
scientist César Aguiar and economist Marcel Vaillant.
Despite
the contrast between the blunt-talking Mujica, known for his colourful,
colloquial expressions, who did not trade in his comfortable casual
garb for a sports jacket until the campaign was well under way,
and the soft-spoken circumspect Vázquez, an oncologist, there
will be no shift in course, as the president-elect himself has repeated
over and over during the campaign.
"If
at any point my temperament as a fighter made me go too far in my
remarks, I apologise, and tomorrow we will all walk together,"
Mujica said Sunday night from the platform set up in front of the
NH Columbia hotel across from Montevideo's oceanfront drive, addressing
thousands and thousands of supporters whipped by the heavy rains
and the strong winds coming off the Rio de la Plata estuary.
His
comments were directed towards the opposition, with which the Broad
Front has proposed negotiating policies of state on certain issues
above and beyond party politics, over the next five-year presidential
term. "Here there are neither winners nor losers; all that
has happened is that a new government has been elected," said
Mujica.
The
calm was reinforced by the words of Lacalle, who greeted his rival
and called on his followers to be "respectful" of the
Broad Front's victory.
The
president-elect based his campaign on the achievements of the current
administration, which included a reduction of the poverty rate to
20 percent from a record high of 32 percent in 2004, and a decline
in extreme poverty from four to 1.5 percent of the population.
In
addition, as Mujica and his running-mate Danilo Astori - Vázquez's
former economy minister - pointed out during the campaign, economic
growth ranged between 12 and seven percent a year until last year,
before the global economic crisis hit, and unemployment fell from
21 percent in 2002 - during the financial collapse in neighbouring
Argentina and Uruguay - to just eight percent today.
Another
major accomplishment was the Plan Ceibal, which made Uruguay the
first country in the world to provide a laptop, with internet connection,
to every primary schoolchild in the public education system - a
programme that will now be expanded to secondary school.
In
addition, the government carried out a major tax reform aimed at
redistributing income by increasing the burden on the middle and
upper income sectors.
"To
judge by the campaign, the changes with respect to the current government
will be minimal," university professor César Aguiar,
a sociologist who heads the Equipos MORI polling firm, told IPS.
While
Aguiar said that although the president-elect's personality could
usher in certain modifications, he added that there will be no radical
changes, and that the next five years "will be calm."
That
view, which coincides with those of other experts who spoke to IPS,
contrasts sharply with Mujica's past as a young urban guerrilla
fighter in the 1960s and 1970s - an aspect that figures prominently
in news coverage from outside of the country.
"It
is important to highlight that although Mujica in the past was one
of the leaders of the Tupamaro National Liberation Movement (MLN-T),
that was four decades ago, after which he spent 13 years in prison
(during the 1973-1985 military dictatorship) and now has been involved
in normal civic life for a full 25 years, during most of which he
was a parliamentarian," Aguiar underlined.
Since
he was released from prison when democracy was restored in Uruguay,
Mujica has dedicated himself to building a strong political faction
within the Broad Front and to cultivating flowers on his small farm
on the outskirts of the capital, where he will continue to live
as president, and plans to build a farming school with his presidential
salary.
Furthermore,
"personality-based politics in Uruguay are neutralised by an
institutionalised system of political parties with strong traditions
that are very hard to break.
"Things
are different in Uruguay than in other countries of Latin America,
where politics are more unstable because large proportions of the
population are young people or rural migrants to the cities, or
the indigenous population is increasingly being incorporated into
civic life - in other words, major social changes are taking place,"
he said.
"The
only significant change we have here is that every year we get a
year older," he joked, referring to the ageing of the population.
For
Aguiar, "not even the left's arrival to the government for
the first time, in 2005, was a radical change. It was not a rupture,
but merely a long-announced change that took place in a very smooth,
calm manner."
Mujica
has friendly ties with left-leaning Argentine President Cristina
Fernández and her husband, former president Néstor
Kirchner (2003-2007), and with the leftist Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. But he has also clearly marked
his differences with them, and has repeatedly stated that his model
is Brazil's moderate leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva.
"With
regard to the country's economic policy and foreign relations, there
will be a sense of continuity with the Vázquez administration,
above and beyond a new aesthetic and some gestures that could make
(the new president) look more like Chávez or Morales,"
said Vaillant, a professor of international trade at the University
of the Republic.
But
he noted that Mujica has stated many times that he is aligned with
Lula's approach, "which points to continuity," he said,
adding that the president-elect will also take "the middle
way" in regional relations.
"It
would be illogical for the new government to shift direction when,
for example, the current policies have brought high economic growth
and high levels of foreign direct investment, which has boosted
growth and has helped the country weather the global crisis without
damages."
Vaillant,
an expert in regional integration, said "foreign investment
has set truly historic new records during this government." |
