-Why did you compare President Lacalle Pou with Pirro the King of Epirus?
–Because it was the Commander of the blue ballot of the NO who defeated the supporters of the repeal of the 135 articles of the LUC at such a great cost of his forces that it could cost him the 2024 election. It was what happened to the son of King Eácides, Epirote of the Molossian dynasty, Basileus Pyrrhus who defeated the Romans in the battle of Heracleia losing more than half of his soldiers, being so weakened that time later he ended up defeated in the battle of Argos and his head displayed on a pike. The feat of the referendum that our president exhibited as a victory looks more like a Pyrrhic victory than anything else.
-You, in your articles prior to the referendum, affirmed that the supporters of the NO were sure that they would win by more than 100,000 votes.
–Indeed, they proclaimed it that way, but it was also recorded by the average of the four pollsters, who clarified that there were too many undecided that they could modify the forecast, but without the undecided, the victory would be approximately 100,000 votes apart. In addition, the firepower of each contender must be taken into account. The No had four times more economic resources than the SI and had the support of 90% of the mass media and the magic wand of government power. Not forgetting his tricks. They chose the color of our flag and left the YES a pink that they mistakenly believed would embarrass us and when they verified that the left transformed vice into virtue and the nice Pink Panther appeared joining against the LUC, they panicked and had to ask the Yankee house of Disney for help to eliminate it. Without counting on the support of the legal aberration of transforming with legal alchemy some 28,630 citizens who did not want to accompany the LUC and voted blank, in votes in favor of the 135 contested articles. And one last difference in this regard: the lack of resources prevented the SI from helping the transfer of tens of thousands (traditionally almost 40,000 come to vote) of our compatriots living abroad, mostly left-wing voters who would have changed the course of the final result. Uruguay remains the only country in the world that does not allow its citizens who live abroad to exercise their right to vote. Until now, all the projects of the left to grant that right were frustrated by whites and reds in a shameful insult to our compatriots who, due to multiple needs, live outside the walls without ceasing to be Uruguayans.
–In any case, the SI was defeated, even blank votes were not necessary to maintain the 135 articles of the LUC.
-You just look at the glass half empty, now raise your eyes and see the glass half full. In the 2019 ballot, the left lost by 37,042 votes and in this referendum, without counting the observed votes, it lost by 22,556 votes, a difference of only 1%, with everything against it. In 14 Departments of the interior, their percentage compared to the ballot increased, and only in 4 Departments of the interior did their percentage decrease. The surprise of Paysandú and Río Negro, where he won, clearly allows us to foresee the recovery for the Broad Front of the entire coast of the country, while the good vote of Treinta y Tres was a breath of fresh air for a left where it was always difficult to improve the electoral behavior on the border with Brazil. While the supporters of the government with everything in their favor could not even reach 50% of the votes cast, nor adding in your favor all votes blank. They even lost 101,756 citizens who had voted for them in November 2019 and who this time deserted their ranks. I have no hesitation in stating that only the spoils belong to the winner of this dispute. Pyrrhic victory as I said before.
-But you doubted that the left could have a good vote in the referendum, with all the indicators against it.
–It’s true and I was wrong. I had many doubts when the Broad Front, the PIT CNT and the social organizations decided to knock on the door of direct democracy to undo with the wind of the people that toxic cloud that enveloped 135 articles of a law that imposed social rapacity over the needs of the people. They risked arousing the reflection of civil society in exchange for the possibility of failing in the collection of signatures and even in the referendum vote if it took place. And again as in the comeback of the ballot where more than 150,000 disenchanted were recovered, this time the revolution of the pens and the one million and sixty-two thousand YES ballots, painted half the country pink, at the first warning bell to a government that does not listen to the voices of half of its people.
The referendum was worth it, it was worth producing the spark that left the main contradiction of the stage: on the one hand those who live from their work, the active ones, the passive ones who did it most of their lives, the small and medium entrepreneurs who live honestly from their effort and from the other those who live from the work of others, supported by a legion of naive people anesthetized by the official discourse broadcast day by day by the hegemonic mass media that sell them the barbiturate of the gold mesh they aspire to imitate , without realize the clever alienating formula that distracts them before penetrating them. It is the same thing that happened in the past when the proletariat did not perceive that its exploitation was what made possible the existence of a surplus value that alienated it from the peer that belonged to it.
-What do you think of the role that our president had to play in this emergency?
-He believed it supported in the polls and did not want to share laurels with anyone. The shipment his allies to the stalls and occupied the entire stage. He disregarded the Constitution, he did not hear his Secretary Alvaro Delgado whisper in his ear ‘memento mori’ as the slave who accompanied him when the victorious general entered Rome had the obligation to tell him, nor did he read the article by his co-religionist Ignacio de Posadas saying that ¨the gods when they wanted to lose someone made him vain¨. Nor did he listen to the advice of the president of the Broad Front, the hyperactive Fernando Pereira, who warned him not to fall into the Greek hubris and to take into account that half of the country did not agree with the harmful chromosomes of the LUC and that consequently he convene the social dialogue. Because the maximum power without social concord does not serve anyone and the maximum harangue and minimum dialogue with society, neither.
He plugged his ears and left without shaking the outstretched hand. She was noted in that press conference with selected questioners and no questions on her injury. His grim face celebrating Pyrrhic victory said it all.
-Finally, after this vote, how do you see the next elections in October 2024.
–I believe that this referendum put the horseshoes on the steed of the Broad Front that was poorly fed and did not want to run. The defeat of October 2019, where 40% of the votes were not reached, where the disillusioned made us lose many parliamentary seats, had left the main political force in Uruguay groggy. The runoff comeback woke him up. But it was not enough. The great pulmotor that raised it up again was this referendum. First with obtaining 800,000 signatures in record time and in the midst of a terrifying pandemic. And then the ballot boxes filled with pink with more than a million votes tying his historic opponent with all the odds against him.
We owe to the LUC the reconstruction of the lost morale, the proof of a still powerful musculature to compete on equal terms and the consolidation of a deep and sure will to undertake the path that leads to recovering the spring of lost dreams. Now it only remains to get on the steeds to feel the trepidation of the hooves of history, this time with the horseshoes on.
That is why I never tire of saying that after this referendum, never before has a defeat been so sweet and a victory so bitter.
