The President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, and the President of the Broad Front, Fernando Pereira, had a telephone conversation in which agreed on the need to maintain respect and tolerance between both sides of the campaign for the referendum on the 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC) of March 27, El País reported and Pereira and sources from the Presidency confirmed to The Observer.
From the Presidency they detailed that Lacalle sent a message to Pereira after the controversy linked to the conference that the president will lead after the Yes chain and that Pereira responded with a call. After the talk, the president of the FA asked if he could make the conversation public.
Pereira indicated to The Observer that in the call it was discussed that “there is a 28 (of March) and that it is necessary to debate with a suitable climate”. “You have to debate hard, as in security, but that doesn’t mean that I see (Luis Alberto) Heber later and don’t greet him”he continued.
In an interview with El País, the Frente Amplio president classified the talk as “a good phone conversation”. “We have differences and they are public; I also respect and it is public that we have it,” Pereira remarked.
change of rules
The campaign has had tense moments such as the crossing between Lacalle Pou and José Olivera, president of the National Federation of Secondary Education Teachers (Fenapes) and one of the leaders of the Yes campaign, on the national network.
Olivera said at a press conference, after a meeting with Lacalle, that there was “a change in the rules of the game” for the change of the No of a national chain to a press conference and also regarding the date of each of the instances. Lacalle responded at a press conference that this was “lie” about the rules of the game. “If you look at the letter, the chain asks for it for May 22. If we had bad intentions, we give the chain for May 22, so they can see how far we have come.”
“We consider that there should have been two 7-minute chains; they have an opposite position, but it always ends up defining the sovereign”Pereira explained to El País. The Frente Amplio president had also commented on this situation last Tuesday, saying that “Changing the chain for a conference is changing the rules of the game here or in China”at a press conference.
“Bianchi ceased to be a valid interlocutor”
For Pereira “the differential” in the crossings of the campaign “It is (Graciela) Bianchi and the resentment for her Marxist past, which torments her so much”. This was in response to a video of the nationalist senator in which she says that Yamandú Orsi, mayor of Canelones, it is not “democratic” because it is a “Marxist-Leninist”, due to his affiliation with the Popular Participation Movement (MPP).
“In Uruguay they will not pass. Neither by arms, nor by votes”, Bianchi added about that sector of the Broad Front.
“I can’t tell you to control a senator”, Pereira maintained, referring to the conversation with Lacalle. According to the opposition president, for the Broad Front Bianchi “It ceased to be a valid interlocutor.”
For the president of the front “there is responsibility of the (National) Party” in allowing Bianchi’s comments, adding that he would call a fellow party member if he made such comments. “When someone thinks that a person like Orsi is not democratic, words are unnecessary,” concluded.
