Uruguayan politics heats up 11 months before election.

AutorGaudin, Andres

Although Uruguayan political parties still have seven months to select candidates in open, obligatory, simultaneous primaries, and the general election is 11 months away, people are already talking about who might rule the country for the five years from March 2015 to March 2020 (NotiSur, May 20, 2005).

Both upcoming elections are already hot topics with pollsters hazarding predictions of victors in both the internal party and general elections. The possibility that the progressive Frente Amplio (FA) could continue governing the country for a third consecutive term has sparked worried conservative and rightist sectors--the traditional Partido Nacional (PN or Blanco) and Partido Colorado (PC) --to spring into action. In addition, seven small parties have filed to register for the elections.

Those voting in the Blanco and Colorado primaries will be able to choose among many candidates who use their own strength to throw hats into the ring. Each candidate informs the electorate how he would govern if elected president as neither the PN nor the PC has a government administration plan.

Elections set for last Sunday of October 2014

The FA, in power since 2005, handles primaries differently. Its party congress, made up of 1,700 delegates from the entire country, last month agreed to put the names of ex-President Tabare Vazquez (2005-2010) and Sen. Constanza Moreira on the primary ballot next June 1. Whichever candidate wins the primary will present the same government program developed by a team of experts.

As for efforts by the seven new parties to register, never before have so many groups collected the required number of signatures to seek electoral registration (0.5% of the national electorate of 2.6 million voters). But far from enriching Uruguayan democracy, if all are granted registration, the increased number of contending parties will weaken democracy.

Proposals written into the statutes of one of the parties seeking registration calls for "boosting forced labor for delinquent minors." Other groups call for absolving the dictatorship of past wrongdoing "as a necessary and inevitable option" or creating "a state that in the long term is formed by police, the judiciary, and the armed forces." There are also groups that indicate that it is important "to prohibit the use of genetically-modified seeds because if we eat healthy we will heal society"; others who propose "defending basic principles such as the neutrality of the Internet"; or...

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