MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay: Lacalle announces new Defense Minister starting next month

“My relationship with Lacalle Pou began many years ago,” Castaingdebat once said

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou announced Friday that Armando Castaingdebat would take over the Defense Ministry from Javier García on March 4, when the latter is scheduled to resign in a move to return to his Parliamentarian duties with this year's elections in sight. Social Development Minister Martín Lema is also to resign that day but a replacement is yet to be chosen.

Castaingdebat is a former mayor (governor) of Flores and a current Congressman for that department (province). He also served as Undersecretary of Social Development in the early years of the Lacalle Pou administration.

With García's return to the Senate, the National Party seeks to win the elections again after Lacalle Pou's government. Castaingdebat is also a prominent Nationalist leader. He resigned as Undersecretary of Social Development after Lacalle Pou dismissed then-Minister Pablo Bartol and appointed Martín Lema instead. Castaingdebat, a 64-year-old veterinarian, is also Lema's father-in-law.

“My relationship with Lacalle Pou began many years ago, dreaming that if someday he became president we would create a Ministry of Sports and I would be the minister,” Castaingdebat said at the time of his resignation. Castaingdebat currently holds a seat as alternate senator for Graciela Bianchi, due to Vice President Beatriz Argimón's leave of absence while on an official mission to the Annual Parliamentary Hearing of the United Nations in New York.

Also scheduled to leave his office is Tourism Minister Tabaré Viera, who intends to run for president in the Colorado Party primaries.