MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: New parliament with women leaders in both houses

Senator Lucia Topolansky taking the oath of her peers

Women lead the two houses of the new Uruguayan parliament (99 Deputies and 30 Senators), which was sworn in on Monday following on the electoral results of October 29, when the ruling coalition again managed to garner a majority of seats as in 2004.

Both ladies, Senator Lucia Topolansky and Deputy Ivonne Passada belong to the Movement of Popular Participation, MPP, --the most voted grouping in the catch all Broad Front coalition-- whose hard core is made up of the former urban guerrilla Tupamaros movement that challenged with arms the Uruguayan political system in the sixties and early seventies.

Senator Luica Topolansky, wife of president elect Jose Mujica, as the lawmaker most voted of the winning grouping took the oath of her 29 peers. These included the leaders of the two main opposition parties who disputed last year’s presidential election: ex president (1990/1995) Luis Alberto Lacalle, who as candidate of the National party lost in the November run off with Mujica and Pedro Bordaberry from the Colorado party whose father in 1973 as elected president opened the way for a military takeover which only ended in 1984.

Next March first Senator Topolansky as president of the 130 member General Assembly, will also be taking the “I promise” oath from her husband president-elect Mujica and Vice president elect Danilo Astori, who automatically becomes the 31st senator and president of the Upper House.

Of the 99 seats in the Lower House, the ruling coalition has 50, the National Party, 30, the Colorado party, 17 and the Independents, 2. In the Senate, 17 belong to the ruling coalition, 9 to the senior opposition party and 5 to the Colorado.

The naming of Ms Passada, from the teachers union, as president of the Lower House for the first of five years was the result of a political agreement in the Lower House.

The ceremonies in the two Houses were not solemn as in other occasions but respectful, distended with constructive statements and calls for a greater political dialogue from both sides, something which to a great extent was absent during the last five years.

The occasion was considered historic and highly emotional since it marked the 25th anniversary of the return to democracy in Uruguay and in that period the three main political forces have rotated in office: the Colorado party three times, 1985/1990; 1995/2000 and 2000/2005; the National party, 1990/1995 and the Broad Front coalition whose arch extends from former guerrillas and Communists to Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, in 2005 and now again in 2010.

The interesting thing is that what the Tupamaros urban guerrilla movement was unable to achieve through armed violence almost half a century ago, they have now conquered legitimately through democratic elections. They have the strongest and most voted grouping in the ruling coalition, they have control over both houses and as of march first the guerrilla leader Jose Mujica becomes the elected president of Uruguay.

“I’m a wild cat turned vegetarian”, Mujica said recently before the 1.600 elite business leaders of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

And signalling a difference from the outgoing president Tabare Vazquez Mujica promised all political discussions must be done through parliament, because “although we complain sometimes because it’s too slow”, it’s the shock absorber of society, where all complaints, demands, criticisms are channelled.