Cracks in the coalition: Manini has a “merely formal” link with Lacalle Pou

2023-09-08 14:48:58

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Guido Manini Ríossenator and leader of the ultraconservative Cabildo Abierto party, left distancing with the time of the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, to whom he lent his more than 260,000 voters in 2019, with the main purpose of removing the Frente Amplio from the government. The multicolored coalition ended up made up of five parties: the National Party (from which Lacalle came), the Colorado Party (which brought Ernesto Talvi to the Chancellery, at that time), Cabildo Abierto, the Independent Party (which got him the Ministry of I work for its leader, Pablo Mieres) and the People’s Party (today barely a memory).

Now little remains of that original alignment, especially in the unity when it comes to walking hand in hand in harmony. Regarding her increasingly distant relationship with Lacalle, Manini Ríos said that it is now “merely formal.”

“It is more of a formal dialogue when there is an issue to decide or for which a proposal has to be made to the Cabildo (Open). But more than that we don’t have any more dialogue,” he stated, interviewed on the VTV program Seré Curioso. “Merely formal”he summarized later.

After saying this, he was quick to clarify that the relationship is not “broken,” but he did accept that there is a “discomfort” because his party understands that the president “acted unfairly” in some events.

The departure of Irene Moreira: a before and after in the multicolor coalition

An issue that seemed to be a breaking point was when Lacalle asked the former Minister of Housing, Irene Moreirawho resigned after being singled out for the scandal of social housing delivered directly and without competition to members of Cabildo Abierto.

Irene Moreira is, apart from being a political leader, the wife of Manini Ríos, so there was a mix of personal affronts as well. “At least that hurt us, but it is also good to say that we know how to put the forest before the tree,” said the senator.

For the senator, his wife “did not give anyone a house” but rather “facilitated access to rent,” because people must pay “for life.” He did not deny that the people who were involved in this controversy were, in fact, members of Cabildo Abierto.but he stayed away from commenting on it.

“The Uruguayan State did not lose a peso due to the actions of Irene Moreira. Nothing was given away here, ”she continued. “It is much less than a rental subsidy, where the person does not pay anything, which has sometimes been provided at the request of the Presidency of the Republic and other actors. Sometimes it was other actors, in some cases the Presidency of the Republic itself. It was not atypical to favor or facilitate a procedure as long as the ministry ruled that it met the requirements.”, he concluded.