MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mujica wants to meet Pope Francis: social programs, housing and abortion in the agenda

Will Mujica manage a photo with the spontaneous Argentine Pope?

Uruguay has formally requested Pope Francis to receive President Jose Mujica when he travels at the end of the month to China, Spain and Italy. Mujica is an agnostic and Uruguay is one of the few Latinamerican countries in which the Catholic Church has been separated from the State for almost a century.

Mujica is scheduled to travel to Beijing at the end of May where he is expected to hold discussions on two Chinese infrastructure proposals: recovering the Uruguayan railways system and dredging one of the River Plate main channels of access to Uruguayan ports and which remains stalled because of Argentine indecision.

Uruguay desperately needs the trains given that the volume of grains, oil seeds and forestry produce has grown several times in a few years and the trucks are destroying the road system besides the fact it is far more expensive.

The dredging dispute with Argentina, with which Uruguay shares the administration of the River Plate and River Uruguay, has been ongoing for years and for similar reasons a deeper channel is needed for Uruguayan exports.

Although Uruguay did not send any special envoy to the inauguration of the first Latinamerican (Argentine) Pope, Francis as Jesuit and cardinal has been closely linked to Uruguay and in several speeches made mention to the work of Uruguayan priests to recover ‘children of the street’, working ‘among the people with the people’.

Mujica according to government sources is interested in talking with Francis about social programs and the housing challenge, which has become one of the Uruguayan president obsessions.

Likewise a photo of Francis and President Mujica would come as a boost for the leader which is facing a tough internal fight in the Uruguayan ruling coalition regarding the next presidential ticket.

Although opinion polls indicate former president Tabare Vazquez is favourite and a winning horse, the battle is over who will fill the vice-president post. Even when it is not official it is well known that Mujica wants someone from his MPP (Popular Participation Movement) in the ticket preferably his wife, Senator Lucia Topolansky or his protégé Raul Sendic.

Furthermore there are great chances that a recently approved abortion bill could be challenged in a referendum. The bill was sponsored and approved by the legislative majority of the ruling coalition. Given the sensitivity of the issue Mujica was not entirely clear about his position but Vazquez is launching a book with a wide spectrum of scientific and philosophical contributions rejecting point blank abortion.

Even when the Uruguayan ruling coalition calls itself as ‘left wing’, as a reflection of Uruguayan society it is extremely conservative and non-innovative in certain issues, one of them abortion. Polls show public opinion slightly inclined against abortion.