2023-05-21 05:01:00
Carolina Cosse defines herself as a feminist, a typical grassroots frontline and independent. The mayor of Montevideo crossed the shore accompanying the National Comedy with the play “Constant”, which was presented at the Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires. At the end of the function there was a tribute to her father, the actor and director Villanueva Cosse.
From his father, a long-standing militant of the Frente Amplio (FA) who went into exile in Argentina in 1973, Cosse says he inherited his love for science and art and for being very detailed.. The engineer, former senator and former Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, asks that she not be rushed to decide if she will be a pre-candidate for the presidency in the 2024 elections. His management in the Uruguayan capital city hall paves that path, since he has 52 percent approval, according to the pollster Equipos. However, José “Pepe” Mujica has already given his support to Yamandú Orsi, mayor of Canelones.
Cosse is convinced that her center-left coalition will return to the Executive Power, after a mandate from the right “improvised and with one scandal a week”, she affirms in the interview with Page I12, made in the newsroom. “My desire is to change reality, that’s why I’m in politics. The decision to be a candidate is very important. There are a large number of sectors and groups within the Broad Front that summon me. I’ll take the time Now I’m talking with colleagues and colleagues.
-In Uruguay, a right-wing alliance led by Luis Lacalle Pou has governed since 2020. As an opposition, you tried to stop the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC) through a plebiscite, which was unsuccessful. Do you consider that this law is part of a more general setback in rights?
-Yes, Uruguay has set back in various aspects. The main one is that the government does not have a strategic course and it seems to me that it is the first thing a country needs. Any citizen has to know the two or three basic principles of where the country is headed. Some pillars of our essence were dismantled. We achieved universal access to quality health; we achieved a world-class telecommunications matrix; we changed the electrical matrix to a renewable source practically in its entirety and we invested in education. To the extent that public companies have not invested and have maintained an automatic pilot course, things have been deconstructed.
-Today Uruguay is experiencing a crisis with water. Is it a consequence of the drought?
– It is a consequence of improvisation. Climate change has affected us greatly but there have been investments below the previous averages. In the past period, the OSE water company had an average annual investment of 90 million dollars and now it is at 70 million dollars, that is, it is a significant blow. This is what the next government is going to face in Uruguay, which in my opinion has to be from the Broad Front because the country cannot bear another five years of every man for himself.
-The president of the Broad Front, Fernando Pereira, spoke of reconquering the soul of the coalition. Match?
-If every day. The Front is doing things well, it knows how to listen to the people and it is working on the program for the next government. The FA is much more than a coalition of parties, it is a movement, where the bases have decision-making power. First of all, I feel like a front player.
-The pension reform was approved, resisted by the opposition and the unions. If they return to the Executive, will they try to change it?
-Yeah. We must have a deep dialogue with all citizens and seriously propose a comprehensive reform that is a reform of social security and not only of the pension system, that takes into account the future of work, actions on education.
-The Astesiano case, the former custodian of President Lacalle Pou who is currently in custody, uncovered a plot of corruption and illegal espionage against Frente Amplista senators that had an impact on the ruling party.
-Alejandro Astesiano was the head of presidential custody and what happened is unbelievable. In the executive tower, the seat of the presidency, there was an office for issuing false passports. It’s an awful lot a week. I’m ashamed. If you ask me what happened two weeks ago, I have to make an effort because reality surpasses everything: they gave a passport to a drug trafficker who was imprisoned in Dubai for not having a passport, it’s absurd (N. de la R: Sebastián Marset). It hurts me a lot because Uruguay has a prestige that was not achieved with marketing techniques, but based on respect for international law, seriousness, vocation for transparency, adherence to the rule of law. We have to get back on that path.
– How do you evaluate the foreign policy of this government?
-Absolutely neutral. Neutrality to me is not a good word. Uruguay has not advanced in any substantive aspect of its foreign policy. And it has not contributed anything to a deepening of Mercosur. We are going to have to make Mercosur work because it is our neighborhood. And to change something you have to want it.
-President Lacalle Pou proposes free trade agreements above the Mercosur clauses and questions the bloc…
-It does not seem bad to me to question, but in a constructive way. There are undeniable asymmetries, I was Minister of Industry and I suffered from them. It is necessary to speak with frankness and pragmatism, Brazil and Argentina have to have other rules with the smaller countries. Uruguay is not a commercial threat for either of the two countries.
-In a commitment to integration, do you agree with the proposal that Lula da Silva relaunched to have a South American currency?
-Lula brought sanity back to the region. In Montevideo we received Lula and paid homage to him, he was beautiful. He came to his senses, I told him. The question of the currency is something very technical and I am not yet in a position to give an opinion, it must be analyzed very carefully.
-We have seen in Brazil the assault on the three powers, we see the growth of the ultra-right in Argentina in an electoral year, you in Uruguay have the Cabildo Abierto in the right-wing coalition. How do you see this advance of the extreme right in the region?
-The ultra-right advances embraced by populism. Anything that promotes hatred and fear is bad for democracy. It is lawful and healthy that there are dissatisfied sectors, but the issue is how they conduct themselves. It can be conducted by leaving people at the level of hatred and fear or by talking. The extreme right does not bet on the growth of the human being, it bets on the worst: hatred, intolerance, which borders on authoritarianism. If you don’t want to think, if what comes out first is a reaction of intolerance, you are cannon fodder for them to give you orders. The peoples have to bet on discussing, asking, demanding and listening.
-In Argentina there was a serious event that was the attempted assassination of Vice President Cristina Fernández. What caused him?
-It seems very serious. Faced with violence and intolerance, women will have to participate more in politics. We will have to do more politics, open the door to young people, students and workers. More politics, more participation, that is the path.
-The South Korean economist Ha-Joo Chang pointed out that Javier Milei’s proposal to dollarize the Argentine economy would be crazy because it would turn the country into a US colony. Do you agree?
-If Ha-Joo Chang said it, that’s fine. I know it, I have read it. When I was president of Antel we organized some talks about the industry and I met him. “What happened to the good Samaritan?”, “Remove the ladder”, I have almost all his books. It is important to promote coexistence in the towns to resist the onslaught of slogans without content from the extreme right. It happened to us in Uruguay with the LUC: they told us that our lives were not going to change. Right now the government coalition says that six months have passed and nothing has happened, but precisely this law affects elements of democratic construction that will be seen in the long term.
-For example?
-The education. Loosening the compulsory nature of education is serious because then the obligation of the State to ensure it for free drops several degrees.
– Is the right to protest undermined?
-Also. Because they tried to confuse the population with the violence in the protest. The right to protest makes any achievement possible, such as the eight-hour workday and the female vote. Protest is the engine of democracy. Sometimes the right and the extreme right lead one to think that this is not going to affect us immediately, but it is going to change for my children and my grandchildren. In the long term, this government proposed an educational reform that turns its back on teachers, who are the protagonists of public education. On the other hand, when the Broad Front was in government, it acted on substantive issues in the short term. For example, the salary accompanied the growth of the economy.
-Uruguayans from the coast cross to buy in Argentina. In addition to what is convenient for them because of the exchange rate, it gives an account of how the salary is in their country. Is Uruguay expensive for you too?
-Yes, Uruguay is expensive. Real salary has been lost. The only body that made an agreement to adjust the salary with inflation is the mayor of Montevideo.
-June 27 marks the 50th anniversary of the coup. What activities will they do from the mayor?
– June 27 is also the anniversary of the general strike that was declared at the time of the Coup. It’s 50 years since the beginning of a dark age but it also reminds us of where the working class was. We are going to inaugurate a memorial of the political prisoners (N. of the writing: they were 1850) in front of the Congress, at 3:30 p.m. The jury that chose the project was made up of women and the idea had to come from a woman. The express politicians wanted a monument that people could experience, not just observe, that contains all the names, and that leaves a blank space in case they forget any.
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