Brazil & Southern Cone - January 2014 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Uruguay’s electoral year began with a fierce attack by Pedro Bordaberry on the government’s record public security. The likely presidential candidate for the right-wing opposition Partido Colorado (PC) this October, Bordaberry knows that this provides his main chance of upsetting the ruling left-wing Frente Amplio (FA); and he is seizing on mounting public concern about insecurity to collect signatures in order to hold a plebiscite together with the elections on whether to lower the age of sentencing to 16 from 18 for crimes such as rape and homicide. Polls suggest this would be successful.

Bordaberry jumped on the fact that there were 10 murders in just the first four days of 2014 to accuse the government of President José Mujica of being distracted by issues of party rather than national interest, such as repealing the Ley de Caducidad amnesty law (twice upheld in popular referendums) and neglecting far more significant issues, such as public security. He pointed out that there were 284 murders in 2013, much the same as the 289 murders in 2012, which was up a massive 45% on 2011. The average for the previous 20 years was 199 a year. Bordaberry also said that in the nine years of FA administrations the number of rapes had doubled. In this way he was also able to take aim at former president Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010).

Bordaberry also slammed the new marijuana law, which he said could lead to an increase in violence. Uruguay’s drug czar, Julio Calzada, has conceded that the success of the new policy will depend “substantially” on the ability of the country’s anti-drug trafficking agency, customs and airport police to perform with “even more rigour than now”.

Bordaberry argued that Philip Morris International (PMI) would use the marijuana law in its legal case against the government over anti-tobacco measures. Vázquez, who has been supportive of the marijuana law, led a crusade against smoking while he was in office. PMI is suing Uruguay in a long drawn-out legal case, for a law pushed through congress by Vázquez in 2006 requiring large health warnings on cigarette packets and banning the sale of those branded as “light” or “ultra light”.