Uruguay’s President defends ‘his’ law, says “it is not the same” if part of it is repealed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, defended on March 23 the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC), the star project of his mandate (2020-2025), which will be submitted to a referendum on March 27 after the initiative of several organizations to repeal 135 of its 476 articles.

“It is not the same to govern without these 135 (articles). Obviously, it is not the same,” said the president in a press conference at the Executive Tower (Government headquarters), a day after the ‘Yes’ command broadcast on national radio and television a 6-minute recorded message without the participation of politicians.

The supporters of the ‘No’ chose to leave the speech of the president, who, instead of broadcasting a message in a national chain, decided to appear in a press conference, which lasted about 25 minutes.

In the first quarter of an hour, Lacalle Pou appealed to the aspects of Uruguayans’ lives that, in his opinion, have improved thanks to the implementation of the LUC, which was enacted in July 2020, three months after the beginning of his mandate.

“Today, it has been one year, eight months, and 14 days since the LUC is in force, it is with us, and the damages announced in a grandiloquent way, with great fanfare, have not happened, they have not occurred,” he said.

The president highlighted the improvements achieved by the LUC in public safety, education, labor matters -mainly in the right to strike and the regulation of picket lines- in the regulation of adoptions and financial freedom while denying that the law did not have enough parliamentary discussion.

“Of the original articles, more than 270 were modified, and for me, the most convincing proof that it is a good law is time because reality is what rules,” highlighted the Uruguayan president, who asserted that “this law was thought for the good of all Uruguayans”.

However, Lacalle Pou avoided triumphalism and said that if the ‘No’, defended by the ruling party, wins, “it is not something to celebrate”.

“I would not call it a triumph. I would call it ratification of a legal instrument”, he concluded.

On Sunday, March 27, Uruguayans are called to a referendum that will define whether or not to repeal 135 of the 476 articles of the LUC. This regulation includes articles on security, education, and the economy.

The campaign to hold the referendum was developed by the trade union central, the PIT-CNT; the Frente Amplio -a left-wing coalition which governed Uruguay between 2005 and 2020 and today is the main opposition force-; and several civil organizations.

At the height of the pandemic, they collected some 800,000 signatures, far exceeding the number required for a referendum.

With information from EFE