Uruguay-Exit Right

URUGUAY

Exit Right

The Left has achieved many of its goals in Uruguay.

The country obtains around 95 percent of its energy from carbon-free sources, the Guardian reported. The state ensures that transgender citizens enjoy the same rights as other citizens, the Associated Press wrote. Lawmakers are even compensating transgender people who suffered under the South American country’s military junta between 1973 and 1985.

The English-language version of the Spanish newspaper El País noted that Uruguay was a pioneer in legalizing marijuana.

The run might be coming to an end, however.

Crime has become a problem in Uruguay, particularly in the capital of Montevideo. The number of homicides is up. The US State Department announced a travel advisory on the issue last month.

Accusations of corruption are dogging the Broad Front political coalition of President Tabaré Vázquez. Critics of the Broad Front’s long-standing friendship with Venezuela’s autocratic president, Nicolas Maduro, recently alleged that Vázquez and his colleagues have profited from illicit commercial deals with Venezuela’s civil rights-abusing socialist regime.

“It is highly suspicious,” Venezuelan opposition lawmaker Armando Armas told MercoPress. “There have been numerous claims of dirty businesses and money laundering, and misappropriation of resources from Venezuela and Uruguay’s state oil companies’ contracts, and millions of dollars from the Bolivar/Artigas fund.”

The Artigas-Bolívar Fund is an investment vehicle financed by sales of Venezuelan oil to Uruguay. It’s an example of the merits of the so-called “pink tide” of leftist politicians who assumed control of much of South America at the turn of the millennium.

Popular discontent with the Broad Front illustrates how the liberal tide is now ebbing. In a New York Times op-ed, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda said more conservative forces – like recently sworn-in Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – are now ascendant.

World Politics Review agreed with Castañeda’s thesis. A right-leaning candidate has a good shot at the presidency in Uruguay’s next election, set for this year. “Will Uruguay Be the Next South American Country to Pivot Right?” was a recent headline in the online analytical publication.

Conservative front-runner Jorge Larranaga has launched his campaign with the slogan “Live Without Fear.” He aims to hold a referendum that would ask voters to amend the constitution to create new security forces, enhance current police powers and stiffen jail sentences. That’s an approach Bolsonaro, a former military officer when the army ran Brazil, would likely condone.

Larranaga’s proposals appeal to many Uruguayans.

Vazquez is already expanding law enforcement, however, wroteInSight Crime, adding that, despite the uptick in violence, the country has a relatively low crime rate compared to the rest of the continent.

But a “relatively low” crime rate makes for a bad campaign slogan.

W