[Marxism] Ex-guerrillas expected to win in Uruguay

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, October 31, 2004
Aided by Uruguay's Problems, Left Is Expected to Gain Power
By LARRY ROHTER

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct. 30 - Aided by a severe economic and social 
crisis, a coalition of left-wing groups that includes former guerrillas 
is poised to win at the ballot box here Sunday what it could not achieve 
through armed struggle a generation ago: political power in a country 
that was once one of the most prosperous in Latin America.

The former guerrillas, the Tupamaros, are the largest single component 
of the group known as the 
Progressive-Encounter-Broad-Front-New-Majority, whose candidate for 
president is Tabaré Vázquez, a charismatic 64-year-old doctor who is 
making his third run for the office. Although opponents have tried to 
make an issue of the Tupamaros' violent past, those efforts have largely 
been disregarded.

"We have changed a lot because the world has changed, but what remains 
the same is our commitment to changes that benefit the excluded 
majority," Senator Jose Mujica, leader of the Tupamaro faction, said in 
an interview here. "Our path and our methods depend on the historical 
context."

Dr. Vázquez needs 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff on Nov. 28, 
and polls show him either just above or just below that figure. He 
finished first in the initial round of the 1999 balloting, with 40 
percent of the vote, but lost decisively in the runoff, which is widely 
assumed to have been put in place specifically to make it more difficult 
for his coalition to win.

An oncologist and former mayor of this capital city, Dr. Vázquez has 
promised to follow moderate policies if elected, saying that while his 
"eyes are on utopia, my feet are on the ground." He has also said he 
plans to continue practicing medicine one day a week and will delegate 
much authority to his staff, "since we medical people are used to 
working in teams."

A Socialist, Dr. Vázquez himself never joined the Tupamaros, although a 
brother, now the head of his security detail, was a member of an even 
more militant group and was in jail during the military dictatorship 
that was in power from 1973 to 1985. Founded in 1963, the Tupamaros were 
originally urban guerrillas who assassinated police officers and 
kidnapped government officials and diplomats, including a British 
ambassador and Dan Mitrione, an American adviser to Uruguayan security 
forces whose death in 1970 while in the Tupamaros' hands inspired the 
Costa-Gavras film "State of Siege."

full: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/americas/31uruguay.html

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