The presence of men, originally from the country’s capital and not young, is historic. EL ECO consulted the director of Factum, Eduardo Bottinelli, about the team appointed by Yamandú Orsi (Frente Amplio), to assume the government of the Republic on March 1, 2025.
-Parity is not in the government team that the future president appointed, when it had been said that this would be respected.
-First it was said: ‘it will be a parity cabinet’, then it was said ‘it will tend towards parity’ and it ended up being with less than a third of women, although there are more women if we compare it with the current cabinet.
There are clearly different profiles on the table, with few surprises, many repeated faces. The majority of those who have been appointed ministers or undersecretaries have had a specific role in the national government, in one of the Frente Amplio governments, or have had a career at the legislative level or in some cases in the mayor’s office of Canelones.
On the one hand, there are four independent actors within the Front, not sectorized if you will; There are four that are between the political and the technical and there are three that are directly politically partisan, they respond to sectors.
The point that draws attention is the high presence of Canelones, where the future president is from, in the cabinet: Carlos Machía, Leonardo Herou, Lucía Etcheverri, Claudia Pérez and Matías Carámbula.
-From the Frente Amplio it had been said that they were going to generate a “40 cabinet” (speaking of age) and the average is almost 60 years old for the appointed ministers. How do you evaluate this generational non-change?
-Clearly in the office there is no significant rejuvenation, quite the opposite. The Tabaré Vázquez governments were those with the highest average age. The first government of the Frente Amplio had great leaders who had a track record in political militancy since the pre-dictatorship. So that could somehow be understood in age terms. The other Vázquez government – the last one – also had a similar average age. Among other things, there was little renewal from the point of view of the casts and there were several names repeated between the first government and the second of Vázquez – that is, the third of the Front -, and these people were already 10 years older.
This is a cabinet formed from experience, little generational renewal and there is political weight as well. That is to say, what seems clear is that a cabinet that had significant political weight was also sought. Even those who do not have a political career have strong support from the president himself, but also strong support from other places with more political backing. This is the case of the designated secretary of the presidency, Pacha Sánchez, and of important roles such as in the OPP, the Central Bank, or linked to the Ministry of Economy. It is building important technical solidity there. Or in terms of security, what could be Carlos Negro or Gabriel Valverde with the role that Jorge Díaz can play. A cabinet of important political weight was created.
-Except for people from Canelones (metropolitan area), which is close to the future president, the interior of the country is once again absent from a cabinet. Is it a mistake to leave out the interior?
-Usually in Uruguayan politics there is an overrepresentation of Montevideo at both the executive and legislative levels. Because if we look at the proportion of senators and deputies also born in Montevideo, it is proportionally higher than what Montevideo would have by population. This has been a systematic bias that can undoubtedly generate some type of conflict, regarding the question of whether it is a mistake to leave the inside out. It is a reality that is not particular to this government, the particularity it has is that it has an important presence in proportional terms to what Canelones is, which has to do with the origin of Orsi, and some particular cases that come from the interior, such as This is the case of Alfredo Fratti, from the deep interior (Cerro Largo). Without a doubt, politics itself has to do with how a national government responds to the interior of the country.
