MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan President Lacalle Pou not keen on a 2nd term in 2029

In 2029 Lacalle will turn 56 and “be old” to run again

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou said that “in 2029 I should be old” and downplayed his possible attempt at a new term in office. That year he will turn 56.

Lacalle also hoped that the National Party “will have more senior candidates” by then, hoping at that point “I can dedicate myself to helping and serving my party and my country from the militancy.” In Uruguay, presidents cannot be reelected after their ruling term. They must wait for the next period.

Regarding Uruguay's social differences, Lacalle Pou told the Chilean newspaper La Tercera that “we should be concerned that a child does not eat or does not go to school, or that a person does not get a job. Those are the real cracks that political leaders should be concerned with. The other rift, which is two opposing political sides, is the one that in Uruguay is not cultivated for the most part,” he said.

“I think that the national population itself, who lives politics with passion, would never allow us politicians to create a gap or a rift,” he added.

The President also recalled that Uruguay's founding parties were “the oldest in the world“ with ”uninterrupted action except under dictatorships,“ he went on.

“There were revolutions, agreements, disagreements, estrangements, coalition governments, joint struggles against dictatorships. And those discussions, no matter how heated, never allowed blood to reach the river,” the President pointed out.

On the creation of the multicolour coalition and how it has managed to maintain its unity, Lacalle Pou said that ”it is a coalition that has different speeds and a different knowledge of political jargon.“

Lacalle underscored that the ”backbone of understanding“ of the alliance is the document ”Commitment to the country“ signed by the five political parties of the coalition and that ”if any issue arises at the popular level, we are free to act.”

The President then noted that “that freedom makes the coalition solid.”

“We sponsor freedom of movement and that the commitment to citizens is fulfilled,” he added.

Regarding his management of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lacalle Pou stood by his decision not to decree a mandatory quarantine in Uruguay, like in the Chilean or Argentine cases.

A full-scale lockdown “was not going to generate the desired results and at the same time it was going to generate very negative consequences,” Lacalle explained.

“We had to combine sanitary measures and at the same time keep society alive in the labour and economic factor,” he elaborated.

Asked about how he had managed to bring employment and unemployment back to pre-pandemic levels, Lacalle Pou argued that there had been “a combination of factors,” among which he highlighted “an eagerness to go out and spend, invest and produce,” together with “the price of commodities.”