MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Andrés Ojeda chosen to chair Uruguay's Colorado Party

Ojeda succeeds Colorado's iconic figure and former two-time Uruguayan President Julio María Sanguinetti

Senator-elect Andrés Ojeda became the Uruguayan Colorado Party's new secretary-general in lieu of former two-time President Julio María Sanguinetti (1985-1990; 1995-2000), now aged 87. The 40-year-old Ojeda had jumped into the limelight when he ran for the presidency on Oct. 27 this year on behalf of the Colorado Party this year, clinching third place.

The PC's National Executive Committee (NEC) preferred his Unir para Crevcer (Unite to Grow) list Monday over Pedro Bordaberry's Vamos Uruguay. To balance things out, Vamos Uruguay's Ariel Amen was appointed Pro-Secretary-General.

“The Colorado Party is here to talk, to listen when the government considers it pertinent,” said Ojeda regarding the future Broad Front (Frente Amplio - FA) administration of President-elect Yamandú Orsi to be inaugurated on March 1, 2025.

“I feel that this has just begun for us, that this was a kick start for the party. This political party today can legitimately and truly dream, through the republican coalition, of becoming and returning to be the government of the Republic from which it should never have left,” Ojeda also pointed out.

“I am here, I am staying here, I am not going anywhere, I am going to move forward, I am going to be here for 30 years from the place where I have to be, have no doubt,” he went on. “For me, the most powerful lesson I have left is that we generated a great current of opinion and that it was hard for us to have enough territory to take it to the ballot box,” he added.

“The work is that the Parliament does not eat the party and that the party can mark a leadership that reaches all its areas, that is why all the sectors are represented here”, he explained.

The position of PC Secretary-General had been vacant since Sanguinetti's resignation in February this year. However, the former head of state kept a high profile in Uruguayan politics and as a member of the ruling Multicolor coalition of President Luis Lacalle Pou. On paper, PC Pro-Secretary-General until Monday was Gustavo Yiyo Osta.