The president of the Broad Front, Fernando Pereira, together with other leaders, was present last weekend in Argentina, and gave a speech for militants and followers of the political force that are in the neighboring country.
The event was held this past weekend at the Roberto Barbat and Enrique Fidalgo La Plata Broad Front Committee, in Buenos Aires.
Pereira pointed out in his speech that “I remember a song by the singer Fernando Cabrera, which in one part says “The street becomes rowdy again”, I don’t really know who he’s talking about, but for me he talks about Luis Lacalle Pou. In the government they have an uproar, a madness. They are able to deny everything. For example, to persecute the poor who feed the poor, the minister Martín Lema is sent to do. A powerful chasing poor who feed poor. The truth is that the one who feeds the poor, although they may not believe it, he ordered an opinion poll that has two unusual questions. The first is whether the Uruguayan citizens agree with the complaints made to the popular pots, and the second is how they evaluate the management of Minister Martín Lema”.
He added that “this is an anticipated and internal campaign of the National Party. And then they assign him to the Broad Front that is in the campaign. Of course the Broad Front is campaigning. And he is campaigning for progressivism to govern again, and it is openly and throughout the country. And all over the world, wherever there are Uruguayans, we will be there”.
In another passage of his speech, he proudly recalled his tenure as president of the Pit-Cnt, and thus referred to some of the founders of the workers’ union, such as León Duarte and Gerardo Gatti. And then he continued: “Now they tell us that we are the FA-Pit, as if that causes us pain. Gentlemen, we who represent the workers in Uruguay are from the Broad Front, and the workers know that. Because when we govern, we govern for the great majorities, ”he said.
Later, he moved to the year 2004, and there he recalled that before Tabaré Vázquez won the national elections, in what later meant the first presidency in the history of the left in Uruguay, “they did not imagine that May 1 In 2005, the Wages Councils were going to be convened in the private sector, and they also did not imagine that with time each girl and boy would have a computer». He also highlighted that through the “Operation Miracles” program, almost 100,000 Uruguayans managed to recover their sight.
He also mentioned that, thanks to the Broad Front, the change in the energy matrix was able to materialize over the years, which according to Fernando Pereira, in the year 2021 it was possible to export energy for the sum of US$ 500 million to Brazil . “Who would have imagined all that? That is governing for the vast majority,” said the leader. Other points that he highlighted to those present was the growth of the national minimum wage and the salary for domestic workers, of whom he highlighted that currently they also have Wage Councils. He also said that there was growth in the income of teachers and rural workers.
“That is thinking about those who have less, and about the professions that had to be prioritized,” said Pereira. “Today a doctor does not work as a taxi driver in Uruguay. Today a doctor in Uruguay works as a doctor. In the Uruguay of opportunities, Uruguayans who had to work as taxi drivers had another opportunity. And I clarify that I have nothing against the taxi, but I do say that there were taxi drivers working as doctors, ”he said.
Comparing the management of the Frente Amplio governments with the current one, Pereira said that when the leftist administration was in place in the country, there was no shortage of medication for diabetes and hypertension in Montevideo or in the interior. On this point, he affirmed that members of the political force have been present in towns and localities in the interior, and that there is a constant lack of these medicines for the population. “There is a lack of pain medication and the government is not ashamed,” he said.
Later, he ironically maintained that he could spend hours and hours reviewing the promises made by the government in the 2019 electoral campaign. In line with that statement, he said that the government promised 50,000 homes, “but it was crazy. That is lying to people. They live with lies, and that’s why they get hot with me and dedicate 20 tweets to me on Twitter, every time I tell them they live with lies”.
The issue of social security reform was also present in the speech. In this regard, he expressed that “they lie to people’s faces, they say that the pension reform is not going to impact them. Looking at their faces, they told people that they were not going to change the situation for those who are working, and they are changing it for those who are 50 years old today. And they are not ashamed. They tell people that they are going to retire with better resources. In addition, they told people that their wages were not going to be lowered, and they lowered it for three consecutive years, ”he concluded.
They participated together with the leader Rafael Michelini, Juan Castillo, Lucía Etcheverry.
