MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay's Partido Nacional sets a 2030 return to government as its goal

Former president Lacalle Pou also took part in the event and closed the proceedings. It was one of his first party appearances since he left office. Photo: Gastón Britos / EFE

The president of the board of Uruguay's Partido Nacional, Álvaro Delgado, on Sunday called on members of the country's main opposition force to “build the history of the future” and set a return to government in 2030 as the first objective, so that Uruguay can “find direction again.”

Delgado spoke at the central ceremony marking the party's 190th anniversary, held outside the party headquarters in Montevideo's Plaza Matriz. Founded on August 10, 1836, the Partido Nacional is Uruguay's oldest political party and one of the longest-running in Latin America.

“The first milestone of that history of the future that we all have to build together is to govern the country again from 2030, so that Uruguay finds direction again and so that people have hope again,” he told lawmakers, mayors, local councilors and party members who traveled from across the country.

Delgado said he perceives discouragement among part of the population and argued that his party has an obligation to build an option that restores people's hope. When hope recedes, he added, resignation sets in, and he pledged that the Partido Nacional would replace “resignation with expectation.”

Referring to the governing Frente Amplio administration, Delgado said the opposition should not confine itself to waiting for the government to fail. “We cannot wait for the government to make mistakes, which it does often. We are not going to wait. We are not going to keep complaining about the lack of direction and, obviously, the lack of results,” he said. To achieve that, he added, the party must have the humility to work every day and to listen to citizens.

He also called for safeguarding the record of the administration led by Luis Lacalle Pou between 2020 and 2025. “There are many who want to undo, out of ideological prejudice placed even above the national interest, many of the things we achieved in government. And we have to protect that,” he said.

Former president Lacalle Pou also took part in the event and closed the proceedings. It was one of his first party appearances since he left office on March 1, 2025, after a period of low public profile.

Delgado was the Partido Nacional's presidential candidate in the 2024 elections and lost the runoff to Yamandú Orsi of the Frente Amplio, who took office in March 2025, ending five years of government by the coalition led by the Nationalists.

Uruguay's electoral calendar explains the horizon set out by Delgado: the next general elections are scheduled for October 2029, with the handover of power due on March 1, 2030. Anniversary events continue on Monday with a Mass, a formal session of the party board and the presentation of a commemorative stamp.