MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay will abandon Mercosur if Lacalle is elected president

Opinion polls show Lacalle nine points behind incumbent Mujica

Uruguay will definitively abandon Mercosur if Luis Alberto Lacalle is elected president in the run off on November 29th. Lacalle also forecasted that Mercosur as a customs union has not much time left, “it’s a dying organization”.

The former president (1990/1995) said Uruguay is banned constitutionally from calling elections for the Mercosur Parliament, which is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay as full members. Venezuela is in the process of incorporation.

“You can’t legislate to call elections (in Uruguay) for the Mercosur parliament. We need a constitutional amendment which must also be approved by a referendum”, said Lacalle during a meeting with foreign correspondents.

“So luckily we’ll be out of the Mercosur Parliament…and that’s when the death of the organization will begin, hopefully, the sooner the quicker”, said the opposition candidate who will be facing incumbent and former guerrilla leader Jose Pepe Mujica.

The Mercosur Parliament was established in 2006 but has had since shown lack of capacity, influence and effectiveness to address issues in a block that has been dominated by trade disputes and conflicts between country members.

According to the latest opinion polls released this week, Mr. Mujica is nine points ahead of Lacalle (49% to 40%). In the first round at the end of October the ruling catch all coalition Broad Front managed to retain control of Parliament but was half a percentage point short of the 50% plus one required for the Presidency.

Lacalle also anticipated he would not dialogue with Argentina as long as pickets from that country insist in blocking an international bridge to protest the construction of a pulp mill that has been in production over a year now.

The dispute over the location of the Botnia pulp mill on the Uruguayan side of a jointly managed river was taken by Argentina to the International Court of The Hague and a definitive ruling is expected next year.

“With the bridge cut, Uruguay can’t even sit to talk, because it is a flagrant violation of international law, Mercosur agreements which besides is tolerated by the current Argentine government”, stated Lacalle.