The education unions prevailed with a wide advantage in this Saturday’s elections to appoint the two teacher advisers to the Central Board of Directors (Codicen) of the National Public Education Administration (Anep). In this way they will hold the positions in the cabinet as a counterweight to the management of President Robert Silva, while the current ruling party loses representation which it has maintained since 2016.
The primary scrutiny of the Electoral Court counts 18,080 votes for the slogan “In defense of public education”, sponsored by the PIT-CNT and the Coordinator of Trade Unions of Education (CSEU). This opposition bloc is made up of List 1 of the Uruguayan Federation of Teachers (FUM) –with Límber Santos at the head–, the 11th promoted by the Federation of Secondary Teachers (Fenapes) –with the communist Julián Mazzoni as leader– and 30 of the historic trade unionist Daysi Iglesias.
With tight differences between one and the other, the payroll with the most electoral support ended up being Mazzoni’s. The victory of the unions comes at a time of high tension with the administration of Robert Silva in the Codicen and that of Pablo Da Silveira in the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), especially with Fenapes, whom the nationalist hierarch labeled as “part of the problem and not the solution”.
Meanwhile, the four lists most closely related to the ruling party have – so far – 6,767 accessions, which makes Invaluable to the difference with the votes observed at this time. In this way, List 4 will no longer have its advisor in the highest governing body of public education, after having achieved his position six years ago at the hands of the current head of the Codicen, Robert Silva. At present, this position is held by Adémar Cordones, who took office after the departure of Óscar Pedrozo months ago.
The former councilor led the list most identified with Robert Silva, who turned out to be the most voted within the minority bloc – “Participation and plural representation without exclusions” – with 3,480 supporters. There are also around 6 thousand blank votes and 2 thousand canceled, out of a total of 44 thousand teaching pronouncements at the polls.
This implies that Mandatory elections had a participation of almost 90% of the 49,812 teachers authorized to vote.
The triumph of the unions to hold the positions of the two councilors was celebrated in the opposition as a “message” to the government, with the referendum on 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration as a backdrop.. Said norm eliminated the teaching representation in the Primary, Secondary and UTU subsystems, and is one of the provisions most questioned by the organizations of the sector and by the Broad Front.
The former councilor of Primary, Héctor Florit, said on Twitter that ANEP’s union lists achieved an “overwhelming majority like never before.” “Defeat arrogance, political interference in the unions and the interference of the MEC (Ministry of Education and Culture), budget cuts, salaries and dining rooms, arrogance, lack of negotiation and summaries,” he wrote to the closing of the day.
The MPP deputy and Secondary teacher, Sebastián Sabini, opined in the same social network that “the Education workers gave a clear message: these educational policies are no more.” “They voted against the persecution of those who think differently, the reduction of wages, groups and hours, stigmatization, null participation and the disastrous LUC,” he published.
Communist senator Óscar Andrade also greeted teachers for a “triumph of public education and genuine representation.”
