Guido Manini Ríos asked for the elevator at 5:55 p.m. with a personal position taken.
Along with his wife and now senator Irene Moreira, the leader of Cabildo Abierto was the last to leave from the 4th floor of the Legislative Annex to the Political Table of his party, with the question still open about whether or not to remain in the government coalition.
Manini Ríos and Irene Moreira ask for the elevator to leave for the Political Table of the Open Cabildo
The former commander in chief of the Army, sitting at the head of the room on the second floor of the lobbying headquarters on San José and Aquiles Lanza, presented two bases of statements, with the central guidelines to defend the two possible solutions.
By the end of the nearly two-hour meeting, Cabildo Abierto had printed only one of them –with additions especially in the final nine points– and the leader did not even need to state his position. The 16 leaders present –ten deputies, three senators, one substitute and two hierarchs– closed ranks while Manini Ríos read the statement that confirmed the continuity of his political force as a partner of the government.
Behind the scenes, Senator Guillermo Domenech insisted that the removal of Irene Moreira as Minister of Housing –after the award of an apartment without lottery to a party militant– was reason enough for him to break with the coalition created by Luis Lacalle Pou. “If we leave, I am willing to give up my bench”he maintained before his co-religionists, in solidarity with the more than 50 charges that they would have had to deliver.
He Deputy Rodrigo Albernaz ratified in Salto that those who defended remaining in the coalition within his group in Salto had remained “in a minority” and that he himself understood that for political work “it would not be harmful” to step aside, especially with the party’s commitment to establishing itself in a third position in the political system.
Federico Gutierrez
Open Town Hall Political Table
The two discordant positions –well received by the lobbyist leader who was listening from the head office– did not allow unanimity to be achieved on point seven of the final declaration, which confirmed by a large majority that they would continue to form part of the government, although requesting the president “the maximum efforts” to consolidate it “with truly republican practices”.
Even former minister Moreira, despite clarifying her discomfort at the departure, maintained that she would be in line with what Manini Ríos and the party resolved. “We have to stay with the charges, because the people put us to be in the government,” defended the deputy Elsa Capillera, who had taken advantage of the weekend to hold consultations within her fledgling Purification grouping.
Deputy Álvaro Perrone – to whom Manini Ríos had entrusted the role of spokesperson to defend Moreira’s actions in the awarding of the house – argued for his part that there are already precedents of coalitions in which the charges are withdrawn and that has no results.
“The weekend helped to have many conversations, that everyone could talk to their groups,” recognized The Observer the political coordinator of Cabildo Abierto, Marcos Methol.
Manini Ríos had stated that he would use those 48 hours to think “coldly” about the steps to follow, after a heated outing at noon on Friday in which he even challenged Lacalle Pou to reconsider his request to resign from Moreira. The lobbyist leader’s cell phone spent those days from call to call with his most intimate advisors.
The retired general is aware of the importance that his alliance has for Torre Ejecutiva, to such an extent that a separation opened the door to possible interpellations that could put important government ministers in check.
“For those who saved two ministers, overnight they change your yardstick to measure the Cabildo (due to the Moreira case). Why do we have to swallow the toad of the passport delivery to Marset?”, he exemplified one of the members of the party’s small table.
So much so that the Cabildo statement on Monday maintained that the dismissal of Moreira was tinged with a “revanchist mood” that had “no relationship” with the “passivity shown in the face of serious cases that have occurred in the last year in high levels of the government or that involve leaders of coalition parties”.
Federico Gutierrez
Open Town Hall Political Table
The political force even attacked the “presidential and personalist model” of the coalitionin one of the coldest points in the relationship between Manini Ríos and President Lacalle Pou, who did not greet each other despite agreeing on the beatification of Jacinto Vera in the Centennial State.
“This crisis was created by the President of the Republic himself with a truly incomprehensible attitude, in a clear injustice to the weakest link.. If she wanted to collect accounts from the Cabildo, it was not with Irene Moreira that she had to collect them, ”the senator had accused earlier in a dialogue with radio 41 from San José.
Despite marking the field to its partners for the next few days, from a deadline to agree on the debt restructuring bill to announcing a “close monitoring of the state of public security”, Cabildo Abierto left the government calm that it will continue to be their ally, and not a new adversary with the capacity to add majorities with the Broad Front.
The political force must thus appoint a new Minister of Housing and Territorial Planning in the coming days. When asked about it, Senator Raúl Lozano – who will now hand over his office to Irene Moreira as head of the bank – limited himself to smiling and saying that he has no news.
