As announced, in response to the message made by the President of the Republic before the General Assembly, the left-wing coalition made its own assessment of the three years of the coalition government in a press conference, and in the presence of hundreds of of militants, in the Footprint of Seregni.
As we did with the words of President Lacalle Pou, we share verbatim the message of the head of the Broad Front, Fernando Pereira, in the way that his press team has circulated it in the media through the official WEB page.
Accordingly, Pereira highlighted 10 points that are part of our perspective on the three years of government.
1
We salute that the president of all Uruguayans has given his balance in Parliament. It is very good to be able to respect each other within a common house that is the National Parliament, and the Broad Front was there, listening to the president.
2
At the beginning of the 4th year of the government’s mandate, society and the institutions of the Republic are experiencing, from our democratic and progressive perspective, a profound process of deterioration.
-66 thousand more compatriots are in poverty, the number of people living on the streets increased,
-inequality grew,
-Salaries, retirement and pensions have fallen while the prices of basic products do not stop rising,
-There are no measures for the problems on the coast with unemployment.
-Security problems are serious, homicides are increasing and prisons are in an extreme situation,
-Public companies are weakened and the port of Montevideo is handed over to a transnational,
-For the third year in a row, the Government announces housing plans that do not have an assigned budget,
There is a country that the President speaks to us about, and another that governs, another country with a different reality from the one he is trying to describe.
We state that the president poses a faded illusion. He talks about a country that is not the one where people live.
There seem to be two countries, one where Lacalle lives, and the other where people who find it hard to make ends meet live, who cannot find medicines when they go looking for them, who see how the prices of products increase, who He has problems accessing work, he suffers violence, he has to go to a soup kitchen to feed his children.
Words are important when governing, but what is fundamental, what changes people’s lives are the policies that are adopted.
Yesterday the president gave a fair and deserved recognition to the firefighters, who have been heroes. But what they need, in addition to applause, to which we join, because we applaud what the president said, is a budget to have the number of personnel, the salary and the conditions that allow them to adequately carry out their work. Applause fills the soul but does not solve problems.
3
The country’s problems are not resolved by avoiding them in speeches or by partisan political uses of sensitive issues. Insecurity and violence are a reality that has affected the entire society for a long time. The year 2022 was a historical record for homicides plus doubtful deaths. It is clear that the solution to these issues was not to transform them into electoral loot. We continue to reach out for a serious and rigorous process of exchange, in which we have to modestly pour our contribution towards a fundamental solution.
They don’t talk about what they want to avoid, and the government wants to avoid talking. He does not want to assume that a corruption scandal whose ramifications we still need to know as a society is still in judicial process. The reality that we do not like cannot be swept under the rug.
And we don’t like spying on senators, present here today, nor on students from a public high school, among many other scandals arising from the criminal association installed in the Executive Tower.
Another major scandal, the delivery of a Uruguayan passport to a drug trafficker imprisoned in another country for entering with a false passport.
There is an intention of the President not to assume political responsibilities.
4
Regarding the tax refund, because it is a refund and not a reduction, they are returning what they took. We have already announced that we agree, and we are going to vote on it.
But we remember that during the pandemic VAT was increased for the entire population without exceptions and the way of adjusting the IRPF was changed, which made more workers pay and that it will increase for all. Many of the people who stop paying today are the ones who started paying two years ago. Today they loosen a little the strap with which they had tightened the people in one of the worst moments in the country.
The proposed modifications do not imply any substantial or conceptual change, neither in the IRPF nor in the IASS. There are no changes in the definitions of income, nor are conceptual changes in deductions, there are no new deductions. All changes are simply changes of parameter values.
With that same methodology, modifying the parameters, they increased taxes in a pandemic and they take them out in an electoral campaign.
When the president affirms that the measure is aimed at the most vulnerable population, he seems to be unaware that the vast majority of workers do not contribute personal income tax because they have low incomes. These ads leave out 70% of workers. The president does not announce any measure for the lowest salaries, those of 15-20-30 thousand pesos.
For example, the president states that domestic workers benefit, but the vast majority do not pay personal income tax because their salaries do not reach the minimum.
The bottom line of the matter is that Uruguay has been falling in retirement, pensions and salaries for three years. That is the worst tax, after 15 years of consecutive increase in the real salary, the salary now yields less and less. The prices of basic necessities do not stop rising and reaching the end of the month is increasingly difficult.
5
The government presented an unpopular retirement reform proposal and the lack of announcements for retirees who earn less than 50,000 pesos. The reform will fall on the back of the workers. More years of work and lower pensions, for those who have the privilege of retiring.
There is no announcement aimed at retirees who have lost three years of retirement.
This reform also cuts and makes access to pensions for people with disabilities and widows more difficult. These changes come into force the day after the reform is approved and will roll back rights from the first day of its validity.
6
The LUC shows its worst face most of the times it is applied. The murder of Cerro is clear, not taking note that a few hours ago a 14-year-old teenager died from a bullet in the back. There are dozens of women serving years in prison for entering prison visits with a few grams of marijuana. 4 years in prison with their children, the same number of years as Astesiano.
They eliminated the participation of teachers and professors in education bodies and carried out changes in the midst of chaos, with budget cuts, teaching hours, elimination of groups, plagiarism of programs. There is no reform that is effective if the teachers are not consulted, if it is done with the back to the teachers, to the directors in the centers, to the students. Even the government that invested and did the most for public education in this country, like ours, made mistakes such as essentiality, which separated us from those who have to think about education, who are the teachers. With what is happening in education, it is the current government that errs on the conservative side.
7
The President spoke today on Radio El Espectador and said the Broad Front was not prepared for the rotation in power.
The president must abandon electoral campaign mode and accept that the Broad Front is a deeply democratic force.
It was the beloved Tabaré who gave the band to the president with a hug of democratic celebration. Tabaré himself led him to the assumption of President Alberto Fernández. It was Mujica who accompanied him to the assumption with Lula.
Today President Lacalle, in the same way that happened in the press conference during the campaign for the NO, acted as a political leader, and not as a head of state: Once again the president in the electoral campaign!
Once again we want to remind you that you must govern for all Uruguayans.
8
We do not do politics just to win elections.
We do consider the need to win elections to change the country.
We are going through a programmatic construction process, and we will continue to offer proposals to the government, even if it does not consider them.
The Broad Front is a constructive and democratic force, and we will continue to lend our hand to the government.
We made proposals for the economic crisis, we made proposals for security, we made proposals to alleviate the effects of the drought. We have made proposals in each department of the country.
Without going any further, yesterday, the deputy of the Broad Front for 33, Nino Medina handed him proposals for the drought.
We have voted for all the laws that we consider positive, however minimal they may be. However, all the proposals we made to the president have not received a response, not even a formal one. But we are going to continue making proposals, seriously and without arrogance.
9
The president presents an illusion faded by reality, an illusion that collapses in the face of reality.
When we tour the country we see that people hope for change, in the alternative represented by the Broad Front.
We don’t want to talk about opinion polls, even if they’re good for us, we want to talk about what we see face to face with people.
In programmatic terms, two projects are clear: the progressive and the conservative.
10
We do not want to end without remembering that this March 8 marks International Women’s Day. The Broad Front calls for all the marches and activities that will take place on this day.
This 8M we remember the date of the fight for the expansion of rights for all women, the workers, those who care, those who hold the pots and in the neighborhoods. And where it is vital to broaden the voice of all women and dissidents to continue contributing to a more egalitarian country.
The need for a change of course is becoming clearer every day. Our political force is working across the country to build the majority that makes change possible.
By listening with humility we learned from our mistakes and became stronger for the challenges ahead.
The political alternative to the Herrerista model is the Broad Front.
We will be able to build victory if we act with generosity, modesty and unity.
For Uruguay,
To continue building hope.
