The latest polls prior to referendum to be held in Uruguay this Sunday, March 27 show a trend towards parity between the options to repeal or maintain 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration, one of the main flagships of the government of Luis Lacalle Pou.
In the final stretch of the campaign, these favorable data increased the expectation among the defenders of the yes pinkthe option that drive the opponent wide frontthe trade union center PIT-CNT and others Social Organizations, that seeks to repeal part of the law.
“My impression is that the glass is getting full and on Sunday people are going to make it overflow. We started the campaign several points below, the public polls reflected it and also the ones we asked for. In the street there was an enormous ignorance of the articles of the LUCbut the work of the militancy allowed us to get within range and change the trend, advancing towards a Yes victory”, he said the president of the Broad Front, Fernando Pereira, interviewed this Wednesday by the Regional News Agency (ARN).
Pereira argued that such a victory would be “featuring,” among other things because the promoters of the repeal had to compete against “the entire state apparatus”. “During the campaign there were abuses of power by the government. Lacalle Pou forgot that he was elected to govern all Uruguayans. He is the president of those who vote No but also of those who vote Yes. It is something elementary, but it must always be taken into account, to take better care of the institutions, something that did not happen during the campaign”, lamented the former president of the PIT-CNT.
Criticism of Mauricio Macri
former Argentine president Mauricio Macri was in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, on Wednesday, March 9, as reported a day later the weekly quest. In an activity at the Sofitel de Carrasco hotel before businessmen linked to the capital market, Macri was confident in a victory of No and said that would mean a “political backlash” President Lacalle Pou, whom he praised, among other things, for his handling of the pandemic.
“That Macri gets involved in our campaign did not seem right to me. If someone from Kirchnerism had done it, surely we would have been in controversy for a month, but Macri came, spoke in favor of the LUC and remained half hidden in the darkness of the campaign. Macri founded Argentinagenerated one of the greatest economic and social damages and fostered a huge crack in society, so I sincerely hope that Macri’s opinion here in Uruguay is worth very littlebecause his contributions to politics have all been disastrous”, Pereira summarized.
The Buquebus Vote
As in every election, the transfer of Uruguayans living in Argentina it becomes a topic of interest for the electoral commandos. It is estimated that almost 120 thousand Uruguayans live in the neighboring country and the Uruguayan electoral system does not allow consular or epistolary voting.
“In this case the situation is not simple, because the current exchange rate does not benefit much the coming of the Uruguayans. We have worked on an agreement with Buquebus (the river transport company), but we have not made as much progress as we would have liked. And we did it thinking not only of Frente Amplio voters, but for voters of all parties”, explained Pereira.
In all the last elections, the Buquebus company has offered a fare of 50% plus taxes for Uruguayans who come from Argentina and can prove that they are traveling to vote. In this case, moreover, trips in line transport by land are not enabled and it is only possible to cross the binational border in private vehicles.
Change rules on the fly
One issue that generated discomfort among the promoters of the repeal is that a few weeks ago the president announced that the campaign would end with two radio and television networksbut then he changed the strategy and chose to personally lead a press conference the next day of the opposition network, held this Tuesday.
“There are certain cares that have not been taken. They changed the rules of the game on the fly and it was very unfair. Also, who speaks at the end of a campaign? Usually the campaign manager or party chairman. But the President of the Republic cannot be the person, it is something debatable even in constitutional terms. The President of the Republic cannot be the head of the No campaign”, he added.
Beyond these controversies, Pereira considers that the Yes campaign was “very intense” and the militants left “everything on the field”, with a special commitment “hand in hand”. “The votes are not only obtained by a leader in a press conference, they are also obtained by talking in the store, in the supermarket, at the fair and in the conversation with a neighbor. And that is disputed until 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, “he said.
Reading the results
To reach this referendum, those who are against the 135 articles of the LUC had to collect 25% of the electoral register to summon the citizens. In July 2021, nearly 800,000 signatures were delivered to the Electoral Court.
This Sunday, Uruguayans will have to decide between two ballots: the pink one for the Yes to the repeal and the light blue one for the No to the repeal. The law requires that in order to repeal all or part of a law at least half plus one of the valid votes must be obtained and the blank vote counts in favor of option No.
“For us there is no satisfactory result other than victory. Today we are working to win on Sunday, because if these articles of the LUC are not repealed, people are going to lose rights and that for me would be a defeat. Another thing is the political signals and readings that can be done later”, admitted Pereira, consulted about the eventuality of a result adjusted in favor of the No due to the blank votes.
The former trade unionist admits that such an outcome could also “be a powerful signal for the government”. “But that will be seen later, today I start from the basis that we are building a majority and the only scenario that I consider is victory. We are putting together a very powerful thing, that it has nothing to do with the leadership of the Broad Front, the PIT-CNT, the FUCVAM or the FEUU, but rather has to do with a collective protagonism, of many people who got involved, even from other parties”, he stated.
The class component
Pereira assures that the “class issue” was a factor that ended up emerging in the referendum campaign. “Perhaps they do not say it expressly for strategy, but the main business chambers of agriculture, the Rural Association of Uruguay and the Rural Federation, and other business chambers, defend the articles linked to the fiscal rule and are in line with the spirit of the LUC, it is notorious,” he said.
On the other side, according to the president of the FA, are “workers, cooperative members, students, the artists, those who live in situations of social vulnerability, the teaching groups, the fathers of public education”.
“And they begin to express themselves because the LUC defends certain freedoms that favor the most powerful, which President Lacalle Pou called ‘gold mesh’. When all that people get together, it’s very difficult to beat them. ‘The united people will never be defeated’ is not just an emotional slogan, it is a quantitative confirmation that when we achieve certain levels of unity as in this campaign, a power that is difficult to defeat is generated,” he summarized.
the regional air
Pereira is convinced that the Broad Front can win the 2024 elections, although, as he clarifies, that it does not depend on the result of the referendum. “He is here to return because it is a game that lost the election in the second round by 30 thousand votes after 15 years in government. It’s about to come back because people are going to compare what the government of Lacalle Pou is doing with what the Broad Front did in fifteen years and I am sure that it will end up opting for a return of the Broad Front”, he assured.
The president of the FA also trusts in “the help” that the Uruguayan left can receive for the “change of political air in the region”. “Boric’s victory was a wind of change in Chile but also for the other countries, and it is clear that with the return of Lula in Brazil, progressivism would gain enormous power at the South American level. Lula is a leader who widely exceeds the geographical structure of Brazil”, explained Pereira, who confirmed to ARN that the leader of the Workers’ Party will visit Montevideo “in the coming weeks” to, among other things, meet with former president Jose Mujica.
Pereira believed that all the processes of returns of the left to the government after alternations with right-wing or center-right administrations, they have factors in common, beyond national particularities.
“It’s one thing to get a account of changes to win an electionthat they promise you that they are not going to lower fuel prices, that they are not going to lower wages, that they are not going to tighten the belt any more on citizens, but when in real life the opposite ends up happening, people end up solving for the left turn”, he sentenced.
The president of the FA assures that the first two years of Lacalle Pou’s government already left as a consequence the fall in real wagesincreases in fuels and in the products of the basic basket and a higher tax burden on wage earners.
“All things they got tired of saying during the 2019 campaign that they weren’t going to do. While a majority passes vicissitudes, the government rejoices for saving money from the Uruguayans. The gold mesh accumulated $9 billion in the banks and others have to go through economic anguish, such as having to eat in a be popular. That’s another thing in common, the big political discussions are still about how we stand up to the exclusion and inequality”, Pereira concluded.
*Regional News Agency, especially for Page 12.