The former president of the Uruguayan Frente Amplio (FA) party, Mónica Xavier, denounced that the government program of President Luis Lacalle Pou shows a “minimal and retreating state” and highlighted the relevance of the referendum that the opposition coalition and social movements promoted against the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC) to avoid “damage” in society.
In an interview with Télam in Mexico City, where she attended the seventh meeting of the Puebla Group, the former secretary general of the Socialist Party (2016-2019) spoke about the challenges to be assumed by the new FA authorities, who will be elected this Sunday, and he insisted on the need to reestablish itself as a force in the interior of the country.
– Télam: How would you rate Lacalle Pou’s management?
– Monica Xavier: Lacalle Pou is carrying out a program that is a diametrically opposite conception to that of the FA. We are going to identify it in a key issue: the role of the State. All the citizens of the planet had the best and most didactic demonstration of the value of the State in this pandemic, where it was absolutely clear that the market did not allocate any kind of equitable aid to the world (…) What Lacalle Pou did is incorporate his program of Government to an LUC that had announced in general terms, but not in its specific contents, going above what it means.
It is not to implement a government plan by legislative means, but for the most shocking situation that we were experiencing, which was the pandemic and almost 500 articles of that LUC did not have a single reference to it. It is intended to implement absolutely diverse themes. While the world said let’s not tie our hands and support everything possible with public funds to avoid a very deep fall, Uruguay approved a fiscal cycle through the LUC. There are also issues that make us regress in matters of financial inclusion and transparency (…) and there are more specific aspects that show that minimal State, in retreat and that does not think of a national development strategy.
– T: Hence the FA’s commitment to repeal this law through a referendum?
– MX: Together with the union and social forces, we decided to travel the constitutional paths towards a citizen consultation and the latest signatures are being verified with their fingerprint, which must reach 25% of the electoral roll. We are not only going to get there, but we are going to overcome it and this impressive homeland will emerge, which the citizens took on their shoulders in the midst of the pandemic.
The opposition carried out by the FA is to proposals that retrace the country’s advances, which were not only made by a government, but by Uruguayan society. Through the various mechanisms of mobilization we are going to confront it to prevent these setbacks from causing damage to the population. We have said it from day one, we did not turn this task into a half-time election that Uruguay does not have, we are facing a constitutional mechanism with 135 of the almost 500 articles of the LUC because we consider them to be the most damaging. It was a subjugation of the Executive Power to make this law have the dimension, the complexity and the diversity of thematic that it encompasses.
– T: This Sunday the interns are held to renew the FA leadership. What should be the changes to be made by the coalition to rearm itself?
– MX: The FA has to be a responsible opposition and this does not mean not fighting. On the contrary, it is to fight the battles at each of the moments and always have an alternative. The legitimacy of the authorities that come out of this vote is very important to continue building the alternative that is the FA in terms of plural governments -at the national, departmental and municipal levels-, but we must also be a political force that maintains that articulating power with the whole of society. Throughout the 15 years of the FA government there were moments in which there was greater distancing and others in which it was possible to articulate in a better way. In particular, we have a very important challenge which is to establish ourselves throughout the country.
We have had a decline in the adherence of citizens from the various interiors of the country because, on the one hand, the political forces always rest when they are in the Government and, second, because in some way the metropolitan area that brings together the departments has been privileged with the highest concentration of population and were distant and little included diverse situations of the interior that is not homogeneous. In political activity, a permanent presence throughout the national territory is key.
– T: During the campaign, the Frente Amplio candidates also insisted on the importance of collective transformations, parity and generational change.
– MX: For me it is key. There is a question that is statutory and another that is reality. The fact that we are almost on the back cover of the statute shows something that we not only have to attribute to the Front as a whole. Women and young people have to get involved in a better representation in everyday life. Women have fought within the FA and in recent times a series of very important results have been added. Not only because the issue is on the table, but protocols have been established for very important and previously invisible issues, such as violence in the political space.
We were also able to go to the presentation of parity lists at the national and departmental level and we are fighting for the whole of the daily structure to account for that parity. On the other hand, the issue of young people and the structure is still further behind because, on the one hand, being young is a condition that is overcome too quickly and, on the other, there are issues of much greater complexity linked to being able to give them a voice so that raise the different alternatives while society is increasingly diverse. One of the things to achieve is to have these autonomous movements, but also expressions incorporated into daily organic life so that agendas are not so dissociated.
Other generations must take the lead, but overall the young Frente Amplio must have more channels of expression in the political force and it is difficult for the political force to recognize that the lasts it has to incorporate are too scarce and homogeneous. All this must be better contemplated.
