The President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, greeted women via Twitter with a short message for International Women’s Day, which is commemorated every year on March 8.
“Equal rights for women is enshrined in our Constitution. Putting it in writing is not enough, with which the government also seeks to advance equal opportunities. # 8M ”, wrote the neoliberal president in his personal account.
However, the reactions were mostly negative, since it has been criticized for having a double discourse regarding the rights of women and sexually diverse minorities, such as LGBTIQ groups.
“The Government began with 7 women in 41 members of the cabinet. Ache and Rubio are no longer there and in their place it was decided to put men. 5 women in 41? ‘Putting it in writing is not enough’, less tweeting, more reality”, launched the resounding tweeter @AlfTuitea.
They also reminded him that there was an accusation of rape at a party with young members of the National Party, a topic that has disappeared from public debate. Another user of the social network reminded him of that time when the president of the National Party, Pablo Iturralde, ordered the women to “shut up”. In November 2021, at the 24th Meeting of Nationalist Women, he asked women to have “fraternal piety, filial piety” and called on them “not to speak ill of our compañeros.” “Let’s shut up if we don’t have anything good to say about our colleagues. In this party that I dream of handing over to the next president in a few years, I want us to have a modern party that knows how to communicate. We have to work on communication, that we train our compañeros”, asserted the highest representative of the PN, whose words led to applause from the audience.
Lacalle against women’s rights
Going back to review the file, Luis Lacalle Pou has not accompanied various legislative proposals to protect women’s rights, when he was in Parliament.
For example, in 2007 it was about the Commonwealth Law which granted rights to couples who were not legally married. This protected women and men equally. Before the vote, Lacalle Pou argued that she would vote against the initiative.
In 2012, after a very long and deep national discussion, on September 25, Parliament voted on the law for the decriminalization of abortion, which was approved with 50 votes in favor and 49 against. back then, Lacalle Pou was a senator and voted negatively.
On November 15, 2017, in the Senate, the law was unanimously approved against gender-based violencebut the now president and then legislator, was on leave and did not cast a vote.
Additionally, on October 16, 2018, he voted as a senator on the comprehensive law to protect transgender people, which also protects those people whose gender identity is female. He only accompanied 14 of 24 articles.
