Not one but two Latin American nations chose new presidents on Sunday – and as Hugo Chavez and his cronies continue their attempt to flex their muscles, these elections are becoming increasingly more important in terms of U.S. foreign policy.
Strangely,while the two nations chose very different men, the new leaders coincidentally share a nickname. In Honduras, the voters chose a conservative former rancher – Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo – while Uruguayans selected a 74 year old leftist ex-guerilla – Jose “Pepe” Mujica.
So, what can we expect from the two Pepes?
In Honduras, one hopes that Pepe Lobo represents a return to normalcy. In addition to swinging the country solidly to the right, Lobo’s election should mark the end of ex-president Manual Zelaya’s claim to be the legitimate president of the country. For one, Zelaya’s term is now expired under the constitution. Second, the country will now be led by a freely and fairly elected president, not appointed interim leader Roberto Micheletti. Third, any claim that the new authorities rigged this election should be assuaged by the fact that Lobo will represent a partisan power shift away from Micheletti. Lobo is from the conservative National Party, and he thumped Elvin Santos, the candidate of Micheletti’s (and Zelaya’s) Liberal Party. If Micheletti and his allies had rigged the election, Santos would be president-elect. All in all, this is a huge victory, and the only downside is that conservative bloggers in the U.S. now have to trade in their “Support Micheletti” widgets for “Viva Lobo!” widgets.
Meanwhile, in Uruguay, the situation is quite different. Pepe Mujica stormed to victory in a runoff, taking 51% of the vote against 44% for free-market former president Luis Alberto Lacalle. I wrote about Mujica during the first round of these elections, and I stand by my position. Yes, he says he will model himself after Brazil’s moderate socialist Lula, and yes he is somewhat bound by Uruguay’s stable partisan democracy. But in all frankness, you are never going to convince me that it is safe to hand over a country to the former commander of a bloody Maoist guerrilla rebellion – especially Uruguay’s Tupamaro rebels, who specialized in bank robberies and kidnappings. Despite his supposed moderation, Mujica has not been shy about praising Chavez - and considering his advanced age, I could cite an old maxim about old dogs and new tricks. This guy will drive Uruguay further to the left, and we can only hope the Uruguay’s established governmental system prevents him from going too far.
One sidenote – I will say that I appreciate Mujica’s wise-guy rhetoric. As per this quote from an AFP article
When center-right former president Jorge Battle suggested that the Tupamaros movement had links to a recently uncovered weapons cache, Mujica gave a characteristically blunt response.
“I’m going to send him a bottle of Viagra so he can amuse himself with more useful things than saying this kind of crap,” he said.
Either way, I think that those of us who stand for liberty should have a clear position on the election of the two Pepes – Lobo Si! Mujica No!
December 1st, 2009 at 8:15 am
Thank you for keeping us up to date on this information. We need not forget how quickly our southern neighbors have fallen to militant socialism in the past and must stand tall in favor of those who support freedom.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:04 am
Another factor validating the election in Honduras is the turnout — it was over 60%, compared to about 55% last time, when Zelaya was elected.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Sir,
I choose to leave Honduras to the hondurans, which is how it should be, although there seem to be many of you who still think that “what is good for GM is good for the US…”, particularly when it comes to Latin America. I only have the sneaky feeling that we have not seen the end of the miseries of Hondurans.
I myself had my opinions on GWB, and could not imagine how a whole nation could be bamboozled into a war with a wad of lies…weapons of mass destruction that could be activated in 40 minutes ! Iraquis managing to do anything in 40 minutes !! God !! What a load of idiocies believed, when the only real target was to get hold of Iraqi oil. Did we let you know that we did not quite like GWB ? No, and not only that, we invited him to Uruguay and he went along fishing with the actual left wing (terrible!!) President Dr. Vazquez.
But when it comes to Uruguay, let me say it is Democracy in action. 53% vote A, 44% vote B. A wins, end of discussion. And he not only wins, in the eyes of his countrymen (95ish % voted, mind you), Pepe is best to guide the nation. It was Tojo in the WWII trials that said that Americans were “Democrazy”. Well, no longer. You are democratic only when it turns a benefit.
We Uruguayans remembered that when the other candidate (right wing) was President we had a vast number of corruption cases, half of our local industry closed, and we went into the slow spiral that ended in the 2002 crash.
Finally and by the way, Pepe will surely not pardon someone to go our shooting his way in Seattle. good god !
Patrick Moyna
December 1st, 2009 at 4:07 pm
3 – With all due respect, people you are proving my point. If the best Mujica can muster as as defense is to insult George Bush (who, for better or worse, is no longer president), accuse American of beng undemocratice (without evidence), and cite the failings of his opponent – then he is no different than Chavez. Furthermore – the fact that Mujica won the election does not strip his opponents of their fundamental right to speak freely and criticize his policies. He is entitled to the presidency and the duties thereof – not the forced compliance of the public (44% of whom clearly disagree with him).
By the way – there were indeed corruption cases under Lacalle. But I would rather put up with that than see Uruguayans stripped of their civil liberties.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:16 am
Hello Adam,
I understand your american cold war view, and as far as some examples of latin american keep bringing that age back, this in Uruguay is not a issue anymore. In fact, Uruguay democracy came back 24 years ago, with a negociated transition that gave strength to the politic system.
There are three mayor parties, Frenta Amplio (48% of congress), Partido Nacional (29%) and Partido Colorado (18%), and the youth (10 years only) Partido Independiente (2,5%).
The Frenta Amplio is a left tendence party, of course, but it was create (1971) but not only adding the classical left international parties, like comunist and socialist, it also was the expression of traditional parties (Colorado and Nacional) liders that found the post WWII actions of their parties, a little bit desapointed in terms of welfare state. Another point, Mujica, was originally a Partido Nacional member, who then “bought” the Cuban Revolution idea, and failed the attemp to get the power by the guns, not just was military unveliabable (small unarmed guerrilla agaisnt a profesional army in a no forest land, the best place for guerrilla), it was also (and more important) a political disaster, the society rejected that idea from the very begining.
The Partido Nacional and Partido Colorado are as old as the country, 1825 can be settle as their foundation (not formally), and since then and till the appereance of Frente Amplio, they have been in the power contest, exactly the same like democracts and republicans, but with a notory domain of Partido Colorado (Partido Nacional only won 4 times).
Moreover this, in Uruguay each party has two very marked internal currents, in this election this was the charateristic because both major rivals on the second round (Frente Amplio and Partido Nacional) have the President and Vice candidates who were the leaders of each of this internal currents: Frenta Amplio did have Mujica (35% of the Frenta Amplio elected congress) and the vice was Danilo Astori (30% of the FA elected congress), ahhh, also Mujica won over Astori the internal election. In Partido Nacional is more clear, Luis Lacalle was the President candidate (with 55% of the PN elected congress) and Jorge Larragna was the vice candidate (45% of the elected congress). So, as you can see, you have both major parties (in terms of results) with their two more important leaders, working togheter to won the election, where else you can see that? I think is the only country in the world that this happend yet.
I mean, the main idea with all this explanation, is that Uruguay is not a popular leadership country, of course leadership is very important and it was one of the reasons why Mujica won, but moreover that, Uruguay is a very noted party country, about 80% of the electors have definiton in this, and the rest goes here and there according to the each election (depending on the economics, the candidates, the campaign, etc.). And by beign a party country, and with the elections results (congress adjusted mayority to Mujica, the rest is opositon) this means that whoever was the president, they are very limited to the oposition control first (49% is taking care of you) and second to your own party internal disputes (half or more of your party is not under your domain).
All this comments apply to Luis Lacalle, in case he did won the election.
It’s true, also, that Mujica and Lacalle are the opposite in many important things (economy, international affairs, welfare policies, etc.), but they have in common that they are both experiented politicians (Lacalle is 68 and began giving speachs in campaign at 16, and Mujica is 74 and was a guerrilla leader for about 30 years, and then turn into democray 24 years ago), and they are both distingish negociators and communicators (with the society), so, I will say that in many points (except this that I told you before) they will be no agreements, but in other points (security, education, climate change and energy policies) they are already talking, maybe the will agrre and vote together at the congress, maybe not, but that’s really a good sign of democracy and politic coexistance.
I hope all this can help you understand more about Uruguay politics, because it’s really and intersting case for study.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 am
Mark – with all due respect I was not trying to encourage a “cold war” mentality. My mom was a Russian linguist, I took Russian language, and I have Russian friends. Trust me – the cold war is over.
The base issue here is not think Mujica is a threat to America – I just think his policies are bad for Uruguay. I am fully familiar with the Uruguayan political alingnment and have done research on the topic in preparation for this election.
The Frente Amplio is indeed an established and ligitamate party – that does not mean I have to agree with them and withold criticism. It is also true that Mujica sits on the far left wing of FA – significantly to the left of Vasquez and FAR left of his rinning mate Astori, and hence he causes concern. I did not call Mujica a communist or a subversive or any of those things – I called him an ex-Tupamaro guerilla commender and for me that is enough to say that he has judgement problems and is unfit to lead a country.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Thanks for your comments. In my opinion, when you make an analysis about southamerican politics (in it’s different countries, and also as a region), you have to think that the first important matter is democracy. United States are lucky (is not lucky, you work for that) of being one of the oldest and most “efective” representative democraies of the world. By “efective” I mean that all the political aspectrum (inside both major parties) did have the change to get into the White House and run (or try) a period. Let’s put this in other way, are there in the States any relevant groups that don’t feel represented by any of the major parties and their internal currents/leaders? I am afraid not, maybe you can talk about relativley small groups.
In Uruguay this is pretty different, the people, the society is different and of course the representation of that society is showed in the elections results, or better, in the evolution of last decades of the 3 major parties of the country.
Tupamaros was a small ilegal group, 3000 people in it’s best days, at the end of the 60′s, and when the left decided to reorganize it self and create Frente Amplio (1971) they where really small and political powerless (Tupamaros)… It’s vox popupli that a sector called 26 de Marzo was the political movement of Tupamaros inside the FA, when they were still in action, as I said, with no political power inside FA.
By that time the uruguayan left was so ortodoxal that rejected many times Tupamaros action, many blame them for the post dictatorial period (for the record, Tupamaros were political and military beaten 2 years before the dictator period happened)… All Tupamaros direction spend many years in jail and were realesed in 1985 (with a negociated amnisty when the democracy came back).
By that time, Tupamaros did have two internal very distingued positions> 1) the ones that believe that they have to keep fighting (not in guerrilla way, more than that in urban revolts guided by Tupamaros and with young leftists) and 2) the position that concluded that the best way to get to the power was be part of the political system. By 1989, after breaking inside, Tupamaros convert themself to Movimiento Participacion Popular (MPP), but (as books say) the 1) option was not totally rulled out… Mujica, Fernandez Huidobro (senator this days) and Sendic (historical leader of Tupamaros who died by that time) won the internal fight and Tupamaros enter Frente Amplio as MPP (also it was very argued inside FA that they should or not entered, finally they were accepted). In 1994 some particular public fight in MPP directions make the finally position and strength of Mujica as the leader, who was elected first representor(that year) and then senator two consecutive periods, the rest of the history you know it…
Take a look at the other neighbor countries, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, etc… In all that cases, the guerrilla and revolutionary movements never caught up with the left, and they couldn’t even by a party by their own. So, if you are an argentinian that belivies in certain idiolgy (marxist, maoist revolution, etc.) you could never find representation in the political system, no party was like you!
That’s the main difference in Uruguay, the left is big, is old and it’s extraordinary heterogeneous, you have> socialdemocracy (Astori), communist party (marxist ideology), socialist party, MPP (socialist and maoist ideology), christian socialdemocracy (actual vice) and so on… For an outsider this is difficult to understand, who does it work? I mean, if you are a guy like Astori, how could you possible by inside a party with MPP or the communist party? It’s very simple, it’s a matter of doing the maths (to win you need them) and choosing beetwen bad and worst (OK, communist ideology died, but you prefer them than the traditional parties?), I repeat, this is more a less why the left is togheter in Uruguay.
So, the important thing here is that MPP and all that they represent will have the chance of one term with the power, and then in 5 years FA and them will be judged by the people in the election once again. This is a huge step for Uruguay democray, it’s means that is turning more “efective” than was before because not just the left has won one time (FA socialdemocray with Vazquez), now is time for a more left goverment to show what can they do.
Think in Uruguay in 10, 15 years, absolutely none of the important society sectors and the parties and currents that represented will say> “I didn’t have the chance..”.
And by that time, dear Adam, Uruguay will be a strong democracy with state policies in different areas, today we have the first, we need the second.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Mark – your analysis is good but I still don’t understand why you seem to thik that I don’t havethe right to criticize Mujica. I disagree with his policies, I think he has demonstrated himself to be erratic during the campaign, and frankly I think that ANY past association with the Tupamaros should call a candidate’s judgement into question (unless that candidate disavows The Tupamaros and everything they did – as I consider what they did to be unlawful, immoral, and contrary to democracy). You don’t have to agree with me, but that’s my opinion (by the way, I probably would have personally said the same about Pedro Bordaberry as a candidate for not disavowing his father’s regime – so I will accept that the argument applies to both sides).
Yes democracy is the most important thing. But a keey part of democracy is free speech and dissent. Mujica is the choice of Uruguayans, I don’t dispute that, but I should have the right as a supporter of Lacalle to say that I beleive he was the wrong choice and that I think his administration will make life worse for Uruguayans. I don’t beleive in giving the left a “turn” because they have proven time and time again that they use their “turns” to do irreparable damageto their countries.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
jajajjajajajja viva Fidel
January 21st, 2010 at 8:11 am
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