Spectacular socialist election victory in Uruguay

Right wing power elite in Uruguay humiliated
By our correspondent Cees Zoon

MEXICO-CITY - The socialist Tabaré Vázquez wiped his opponents from the map with over 50 percent of the votes. The economic crisis has done the old rulers of Uruguay in.

Tabaré Vázquez will be the first socialist president of Uruguay. The leader of the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) more than fulfilled the predictions and received over 50% of the votes in the first round of the elections. The two traditional parties of the small Latin-American country were wiped out. The Front will moreover receive an absolute majority in both the parliament and the senate.

Rarely has the term "political earthquake" been more appropriate. The Partido Colorado and the Partido Blanco have governed Uruguay 'since the beginning of the universe', wrote Eduardo Galeano. A slight exaggeration of the most famous writer of the country, who perhaps meant since the beginning of the Uruguay universe: ever since independence in 1830, after the secession from Argentine, the two conservative parties have ruled alternately and in mutual consultation. Not a single other group, apart from military dictators, ever exercised governmental responsibility.

'The two have governed so long that they had become a unitary party, disguised as two parties', Galeano said after Vázquez's victory. Even the names do not indicate any ideological difference: the White Party and the Coloured Party. Which of the two was the governmental party of the moment made little difference: 'Why did they promise change and did we always have to choose between the same and the same?'

On his third attempt, Tabaré Vázquez has floored the rusted system. The 64-year old cancer specialist five years ago won the first round, but was defeated when the old parties bundled their forces in the second round. The Colorado-party of incumbent president Jorge Batlle was served a knock-out on sunday. Its candidate Stirling received no more than 10 percent of the votes. The Blanco-candidate did relatively a lot better with 34 percent.

The fear campaign waged by the traditional politicians had a contrary effect. If the left wins, all Uruguayans will have to wear the same uniforms as in Mao's China, warned one of the Colorados' leaders. Brace yourselves, Uruguayans, his party colleagues added, with the Broad Breed Front the terrorists and murderers will come to power in this country.

The campaign focused especially on the representatives of the former city guerrilla movement Tupamaros who form part of the Broad Front. The Tupamaros marked Uruguay with violence in the seventies of the last century, which eventually led to the coup of 1973 and a thirteen-year military dictatorship. But the remaining members of the movement have long since repudiated the violence. The Front is literally broad, uniting some twenty left-wing political parties and organisations. It has governmental experience in the person of Tabaré Vázquez, who in the nineties was mayor of the capital Montevideo.

The win by the left is a consequence of the deep economic crisis Uruguay is currently going through. The land was dragged along in Argentinia's collapse in 2002, experienced a steep increase of poverty and had its foreign debt rise to a record level. [..]

Vázquez's victory fits in a left-wing trend that has been going on in Latin America for a few years now. The new president has announced that he will give priority to the ties with his ideologically related colleagues Lula in Brazil and Kirchner in Argentine, and an accelerated development of the trade bloc Mercosur. [..]