MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Orsi evaluating candidates for Buenos Aires Embassy

Cánepa is reportedly the frontrunner for the position

Uruguay's future government to be inaugurated on March 1 is evaluating candidates for the Embassy in Buenos Aires. According to local media, former Assistant Presidential Secretary Diego Cánepa seems to be the leading candidate to fill the vacancy left by Carlos Enciso, who resigned to focus on his possible candidacy for the Florida City Council. Foreign Minister Omar Paganini confirmed the position would remain unfilled until the change of government.

Cánepa held that position during President José Pepe Mujica's term. President-elect Yamandú Orsi -Mujica's mentoree- is aware that Uruguay is heavily dependent on its ties with neighboring Argentina and faces an uphill task reaching out to Javier Milei's administration given the Libertarian leader's stance regarding countries not aligned ideologically with him. Orsi, of the leftwing Broad Front (Frente Amplio - FA), is close to Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Chile's Gabriel Boric Font, with whom Milei has been coldly distant.

Challenging Cánepa's bid is career diplomat Liliana Alfaro, who has served as Uruguayan Consul to Buenos Aires under President Tabaré Vázquez and then-Ambassador Héctor Lezcano. Nevertheless, Cánepa is believed to be the frontrunner given his support within Orsi's innermost circle.

Some 100,000 Uruguayans live in Argentina, which renders them the sixth-largest foreign community in the country.

Alfaro, who is currently a delegate of Mujica's FA Movement of Popular Participation (MPP) faction in Buenos Aires, is said to have been endorsed by the former head of State and his wife and former vice-president Lucia Topolansky, whom Orsi holds very dear.

Enciso resigned last month after stepping down from the Lower House to move to Buenos Aires on May 26, 2020. The former mayor (Governor) of Florida thanked President Luis Lacalle Pou “for the responsibility and honor he gave me in representing Uruguay.”