MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colorado candidate picks wrong analogy to describe Uruguay's relationship with Mercosur

Ojeda made his point that “Uruguay cannot make 50 threats to leave a Mercosur from which it is never going to leave”

Colorado Party presidential candidate Andrés Ojeda chose a controversial analogy this weekend to refer to Uruguay's situation within the South American Common Market (Mercosur). He claimed it was affecting his country's credibility not to kill any hostage when hijacking airplanes.

He meant that Montevideo should stop threatening to leave the bloc when everybody knew it was not going to although sometimes it was annoying to see how badly it was treated by the other members. The Colorado Party is a member of the ruling Multicolor coalition.

“If you are going to hijack a plane you have to be willing to kill at least one hostage,” said Ojeda in a video message that went viral. “I always say something, and I tell my clients,” the lawyer Ojeda began, “if you are going to hijack the plane, at least you have to be willing to kill a hostage. Otherwise, don't hijack the plane, because the next time you hijack the plane, nobody is going to believe you.”

“Uruguay cannot make 50 threats to leave a Mercosur from which it is never going to leave. That is the reality. Why won't it leave? Because out of the 1,400 exporting companies in Uruguay, 400 have their work basically based entirely on Mercosur. Today we are shooting ourselves in the foot by leaving Mercosur,” he also argued.

“Obviously, I am as angry as everybody else that they ignore us, that they don't give us a chance,” he went on. “But, in the end, the reasonable and pertinent decision has to be pragmatic: I am not going to leave a place where it is good for me to be, even if it is annoying how they treat me.”

After the video went viral, Ojeda took heavy flak for his remarks. An X user wrote about an “unspeakable” presidential candidate. “Shame and Horror,” he added about “comparing a market association of countries with the crime of hijacking a plane! and killing hostages!” as another social media commentator underlined. “People read headlines and don't watch the whole video. It is the 'trap' to attract attention,” another X user warned.