Uruguayans reject right-wing presidential candidate

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Sabina Becker

Gadzooks, he speaks English. He hangs in some mighty crappy company. He’s with some obscure putschist group calling itself the “Cuban Democratic Directorate”, even though he’s not Cuban (nor particularly democratic.) And he chooses his words ever so carefully, but whom is he criticizing above? Hmmmm. Maybe he has a problem with the popularity of other candidates who have something in common with Chavecito’s views. There certainly is no Venezuelan interference going on in Uruguay!

From Aporrea, something more on this unpleasant old man, which may explain why the left is still more popular in Uruguay than certain politicians of the right:

Politicians, Uruguayan attorneys, and ex-political prisoners expressed their rejection in no uncertain terms of the presidential candidacy of Luis Alberto Lacalle, of the National Party, on an Argentine TV channel.

Lacalle was a guest on Mirtha Legrand’s program on the Buenos Aires channel, América. In one part of the interview, the host questioned him about the dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 to 1985, and the role of the National Liberation movement (MLN-Tupamaros).

The Blanco party aspirant replied that the MLN intended to destroy the democratic institutions, and the coup d’état was a consequence of the Tupamaros’ action. He added: “In Uruguay we only had half a dozen disappeared.”

Oscar López Goldaracena, a human-rights attorney, called Lacalle’s attitude “a lack of respect for history, society, memory, and the victims.”

“It is to ignore that there was a Plan Condor, that Uruguayan militaries travelled abroad to torture, that there were clandestine prisoner-transfers, and more than 200 disappeared persons.”

The senator for the Broad Front, Rafael Michelini, opined that the National Party candidate “has a brutal non-recognition of what took place.”

Sergio López Burgos, an ex-political prisoner, commented that in Uruguay, there were child thefts and thousands of tortured prisoners.

Even among the ranks of the Nationalists, there were reactions. The politician, writer and journalist, Juan Raúl Ferreira, said he felt “surprise and a bit of pain listening to Lacalle.”

“It’s one thing to not have eyes in the back of your head, and another to have them there and still not see…The facts of recent history are very painful. It is a very sad part of our lives, and those of our compatriots, and they all deserve respect,” Ferreira said.

Translation mine.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that Lacalle was drunk when he said those incredibly awful things. At least two YouTube videos of him are labelled “Lacalle borracho”. One is just a slowed-down version of the one above, in which he does sound very boozy–or would if one hadn’t heard the first and realized that the two were the same. I don’t know about the provenance of the other, but the audio on it also sounds rather suspect. The comments on both videos intimate that he is certainly a drunk anyway (hmmm, not a popular man, either!), whatever one makes of the audio.

And to be fair, one would almost have to be a pretty serious alcoholic these days, in order to still give credence to neoliberalism (as Lacalle does), and minimize the crimes of the Uruguayan military dictatorship and Plan Condor (which he also does).

Either that, or one would have to be a pretty damn convinced fascist.

And to vote for him, I’d say one would have to be both!

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10 Responses to Uruguayans reject right-wing presidential candidate

  1. Anthony says:
    October 12, 2009 at 10:11 AM

    Ah, Luis Lacalle. What a character he is. He seems so determined to beat the Frente Amplio candidate, José “Pepe” Mujica, that he will literally say anything to rile up his base and keep everyone else confused. Here are some of the statements that Lacalle has made on the campaign trail:
    “He [Lacalle] said Mujica lived in a “miserable hut” in his farm; he called all those receiving a minimum-salary support from government a bunch of “good-for-nothing abusers” and promised to use a “motor-saw” to cut off all government waste. He also said that shanty dwellers before they are given a house should be taught to bathe.”
    Wow. Pretty La-callous words there. Considering that Uruguay still has its share of poverty to deal with (they were the first country to receive computers from the “One Laptop per Child” project, for instance), Lacalle is pretty much laying out his policies towards the little man for everyone to see. No wonder people in Venezuela gather in huge crowds when Chavez holds a speech – they know he’s going to help them out. Whereas Lacalle is pretty much telling poor people to go pound sand; hopefully, that will swing the undecided voters towards Mujica in a possible second round of elections. Unless, of course, Pepe scores 50% in the first round – keep hope alive, Anthony. 🙂
    Source of quotes: http://en.mercopress.com/2009/10/01/uruguays-fumbling-presidential-election-makes-the-undecided-soar

  2. Sabina Becker says:
    October 12, 2009 at 10:19 AM

    Yeah, I’m hoping Mujica kicks Lacalle’s ass, too. It’s obvious to me that Lacalle is one of those “let them eat cake” types. He obviously hates the poor, probably because they get in the way of his profits or his image. No wonder he hates Chavecito–that man came from poverty himself, and he knocks himself out to help the poor, starting with healthcare and education, and moving right on from there to jobs and housing. Already the poverty rates in Venezuela are down by nearly half, after just ten years of Chavecito. And he did it without killing a single peasant. The Uruguayan dictatorship that Lacalle seems to love so much, however…

  3. Nolan says:
    October 12, 2009 at 11:14 AM

    Unfortunately I have a bad feeling that this scumbag will once again be president of Uruguay. While Vazquez is extremely popular for good reason, his moderate stance has often lead to him distancing himself from his own party. Mujica would probably moderate himself as president but as a former Tupamaro the media will do their best to portray him as some terrorist extremist who will sell the country to Hugito.

  4. Sabina Becker says:
    October 12, 2009 at 11:36 AM

    Yeah, that was my main problem with Tabaré Vázquez, too. Too much moderation is not a good thing. On the surface, it may have seemed to him that he could improve the Frente’s popularity by reaching out to the other side(s)–but in reality, it never works that way. It sours the faithful who were hoping for more radical change. And those he was hoping to reel in, would have stayed with their Blanco or Colorado candidates no matter what, because they just hate leftists of any kind. They’re oligarchs!
    Those who abandon their leftist roots end up strangely unpopular–just look at Teodoro Petkoff in Venezuela. He started out as a real communist guerrilla, then moved right and moved right with what he perceived as changing times, until he ended up presiding over the economic disasters of the Caldera régime. Now he’s pretty much written himself into irrelevance–his anti-Chávez newspaper is read more for the comics (and the comedy) than anything else.
    The really funny thing is, Chávez has grown MORE popular, not less so, the more his discourse has moved to the left. People sense that he means business, and that’s what they elected him for. If Mujica is smart, he will stay true to the ideals, if not the methods, he espoused during his Tupamaro days, and align with the ALBA for mutual benefit while maintaining political sovereignty in Uruguay (which the ALBA certainly won’t impede, seeing as it’s a fair-trade bloc rather than a political one.)
    Of course, it stands to reason that the right-wing media will browbeat and defame him, and maybe even call for coups. But they do that everywhere. They’re oligarchs! The thing to do is stand up to them, and not back down. The media are as discredited as the politicians they kowtow to, and ordinary people will take what they say with a lot of salt.

  5. Manaat says:
    October 12, 2009 at 12:00 PM

    I love the Petkoff cartoon with “Hitler loved babies. Stalin loved babies. Hugo loves babies — you conclude”.

  6. Jorge says:
    October 12, 2009 at 12:19 PM

    Mr Lacalle was involved in a corruption situation as well as his minister of finance at the time. He sold Banco Pan de Azucar. So please Mr Lacalle before you point your finger at others take a look of what you and your close friends have done to ruin the situation in Uruguay. Face it you would not be a good president . Just stay at home and have drink and take care of that leg.

  7. Manaat says:
    October 12, 2009 at 1:04 PM

    The H-man seems to be sick. There was no Aló Presidente yesterday; he is also absent in the “Día de la resistencia indígena” today … wonder what’s going on …

  8. Sabina Becker says:
    October 12, 2009 at 1:37 PM

    Manaat, I suspect the ‘Cito may be down with the flu. Or his asthma may be bothering him.
    Jorge, thanks for dropping by–you caught my exact feelings about Lacalle. This guy made a mess of Uruguay before. He shouldn’t be allowed to do it again.

  9. Manaat says:
    October 12, 2009 at 2:50 PM

    He needs to take some rest and lose some weight. He has (like most Venezuelans) put on a little weight in the last few years 🙂

  10. Sabina Becker says:
    October 12, 2009 at 2:56 PM

    Yeah, no kidding. There’s too much good (fattening) food in Venezuela now, LOL. Much as I like his dimples, the gut has got to go.

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