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<font size=4><b>Uruguay Elects Former Guerrilla as Next
President<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>Written by Darío Montero <br>
Monday, 30 November 2009 <br>
<a href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2229/1/" eudora="autourl">
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2229/1/<br><br>
</a>(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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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. <br><br>
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." <br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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. <br><br>
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. <br><br>
Furthermore, "personality-based politics in Uruguay are neutralised
by an institutionalised system of political parties with strong
traditions that are very hard to break. <br><br>
"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.
<br><br>
"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.
<br><br>
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." <br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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.
<br><br>
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. <br><br>
"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." <br><br>
Vaillant, an expert in regional integration, said "foreign
investment has set truly historic new records during this
government."<br><br>
<br><br>
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