After Mujica: Can Uruguay Maintain Its Progressive Model?

Robert Valencia
In a region wracked by drug-related crimes, Uruguay stood out in 2013 when it became the first country in Latin America, and the world, to legalize the growth and sale of marijuana. Critics argued that the move would open the floodgates to increased consumption and abuse, but then-President Jose “Pepe” Mujica argued that the measure would quell drug trafficki


In a region wracked by drug-related crimes, Uruguay stood out in 2013 when it became the first country in Latin America, and the world, to legalize the growth and sale of marijuana. Critics argued that the move would open the floodgates to increased consumption and abuse, but then-President Jose “Pepe” Mujica argued that the measure would quell drug trafficking in a country where one-third of prison inmates serve time on narcotics-related charges. The decision, while unprecedented, is consistent with Uruguay’s legacy of socially progressive policies; the country legalized abortion in 2012, was among the first in Latin America to establish a welfare state guaranteeing free public education and has been a leader in women’s rights. The country, otherwise known for its soccer superstars, gained international visibility as a beacon of progressive ideals.

For Uruguayans, the global attention was an opportunity to show that, despite being a nation of only 3 million inhabitants and the second smallest in South America, their country is more than just a hub for soccer talent. Though the world might perceive Uruguay as parochial, Uruguayans see their nation as a pioneer in correcting course on a range of policies that, they believe, have failed citizens in neighboring countries. In the hopes of serving as an example for progressive movements in the region and beyond, Uruguay has undertaken bold social and economic initiatives that have been applauded worldwide in recent years.

In 2013, The Economist called Uruguay the “country of the year,” thanks to legislation legalizing same-sex marriage and abortion, issues that many other countries have struggled to cope with. That same year, Uruguay passed its law legalizing and regulating the production and consumption of cannabis, in an attempt to halt more serious crimes that stem from drug trafficking across the Americas.

Some of these laws would not have come to fruition if it weren’t for Mujica, who in 2013 was lauded in the international press as a “global thinker” and the “world’s humblest president” for donating 90 percent of his salary to the public. Mujica’s candid demeanor and frugal lifestyle, unusual for a world leader, strengthened Uruguay’s image internationally. Unlike some of his left-leaning counterparts in Latin America, Mujica never sought to manipulate constitutional term limits in order to stay permanently in power. Instead he was satisfied to pass the progressive torch to Tabare Vazquez, who won the presidential election in November 2014.

Though Mujica and Vazquez both belong to the Broad Front, a center-left party that has governed Uruguay for the past three consecutive presidential and parliamentary terms since 2004, they are at odds on several issues. Ever since Vazquez took office in March 2015, he has pledged to halt the purchase of cannabis in pharmacies. Likewise, he has been a staunch critic of the recent abortion laws, and his government is likely to distance itself from populist regimes in Latin America, such as Venezuela’s, with which Mujica maintained a close relationship. If Mujica represented Uruguay’s liberal and populist ideology, Vazquez has been more modest, focusing on education, infrastructure, security and health care policies, and forging closer relationships with other emerging economies and the United States, with which Vazquez has attempted to open talks for a free-trade agreement. Uruguayans now ask whether their country’s progressive era, which inspired so many in the Western Hemisphere and beyond, has come to an end.

How Did Uruguay Get Here?
To understand Uruguay’s policies today, it’s important to look at its history. The years that followed Uruguay’s declaration of independence in 1825 were rocky ones. Between the mid- and late 1800s, the country witnessed foreign military interventions by neighboring countries such as Brazil, and faced internal strife between political factions such as the conservative Blancos, or Whites, and the liberal Colorados, or reds. It wasn’t until the 20th century, with the election as president in 1903 of Jose Batlle y Ordonez that Uruguay truly witnessed a new dawn of progressive measures. In the midst of rising immigration, primarily from Italy and Spain, the country saw the origins of Batllismo, a staunchly progressive ideology implemented by the Colorado party, which advocates for government control of the economy through state-run monopolies, and social policies to strengthen the middle class. Batllismo sympathizers believed that the state should play a role in the equal distribution of earnings among the population. Battle y Ordonez published what he called Apuntes, a series of commentaries outlining his policies to make “the rich less rich so that the poor become less poor.”

In 2013, The Economist called Uruguay the “country of the year.”
Battlismo, which was characterized by nationalist policies and balanced macroeconomic measures, earned Uruguay the moniker the “Switzerland of the Americas.” The country was among the few in Latin America to establish a full separation of church and state. Battlismo also advocated for state intervention when foreign corporations with operations in Uruguay outsource their earnings, thus weakening GDP. The same ideological current laid the groundwork for the 1918 constitutional reform that decentralized the government and granted a universal right to vote. As a result, Uruguay became the first South American country to allow women’s suffrage in 1927. Furthermore, the progressive measures of Batllismo were a precursor to the Montevideo Convention in 1933. Hosted by former President Jose Serrato, a staunch Batllista, the convention codified the theory of statehood in the Americas and saw the launching by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the Good Neighbor Policy, which prohibited U.S. armed intervention in Latin America.

Despite these early successes, one of Batllismo’s pillars, the rejection of class warfare to alleviate social tensions, was to face one of its biggest challenges in the 1960s with the creation of a left-wing urban guerrilla group, the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement, known as the Tupamaros. Inspired by 19th-centrury Peruvian indigenous revolutionary Tupac Amaru II as well as by the Cuban Revolution, and led by its founder, Raul Sendic, the Tupamaros included members of trade unions and radical dissidents of the Socialist Party. At its origins in the early 1960s, the group was a nonviolent political movement, albeit one that pursued its goal of redistributing wealth among the poor by robbing banks and other businesses. However, the Tupamaros began to engage in political kidnappings and violence after the government declared a state of emergency in 1968.

The group peaked in the early 1970s but collapsed in 1972 after many of its members were arrested, exiled or killed by government forces. Mujica, himself a Tupamaro, was arrested in that year alongside nine other high-ranking members of the group. They remained in prison following the military coup of 1973, but were eventually released when parliamentary democracy was restored in 1985. Many of them, including Mujica, went on to join the Broad Front, a coalition of Batllista followers and progressive enthusiasts, in 1989, in order to pursue change through political initiatives. The Tupamaro years were a clear influence on Mujica’s ideology, as was evident when he became president.

Batllismo’s legacy endures today. Uruguay is now the most secular state in the Western Hemisphere. For instance, Holy Week is officially called “the Week of Tourism,” while the Dec. 25 holiday is officially the “Day of the Family.” In Latin America, Uruguay ranked first in a number of indicators according to a 2013 U.S. State Department “index of indexes,” including democracy, anti-corruption efforts, peace, quality of living, size of its middle class and freedom of the press. It also ranked first overall among Latin American countries in Legatum Institute’s 2015 Prosperity Index.

Mujica and Vazquez: Team of Rivals
While many consider Uruguay to be one of the Americas’ most successful mesocracies—or a government dominated by the middle class—some of the policies Mujica put in place may be tested during Vazquez’s term, his second nonconsecutive stint as president. The two men can be considered Uruguay’s most important leaders, and both remain popular among citizens of all socio-economic levels. During his first term from 2005-2010, Vazquez pushed reforms in education and working conditions and significantly expanded the welfare system. His time in office saw poverty rates fall from 32 to 20 percent between 2004 and 2009.

Many of Vazquez’s progressive policies from his first term are still in effect today. The so-called Plan Ceibal program provides all schoolchildren and teachers with laptop computers. Critics believed that Ceibal would have a negative impact on students’ math and reading scores, arguing that computers cannot be fully integrated as a learning tool into classrooms. Experts, however, believe that Uruguay could have the continent’s highest educational performance if the program is maintained for the next two generations of students. The National Fund for Health (FONASA) is yet another popular program implemented during Vazquez’s first term, in which citizens were able to earmark up to 4.5 percent of their wages to the fund. In 2014, Uruguayans were able to collect up to $85 million in savings, and refunds for 2015 became available in September.

Following in the footsteps of Batllismo, Vazquez’s first term saw a tough government stance on the activities of multinational corporations in Uruguay, particularly with regard to the administration’s progressive priorities. In 2006, for instance, Vazquez pushed through an anti-smoking law that was one of the most aggressive of its kind globally, leading to tensions with the Phillip Morris tobacco company. The decree prohibits the consumption of tobacco indoors or where there is no ventilation, and bans any form of publicity, promotion or sponsorship of any tobacco-related product, be it on television, radio or in newspapers. Additionally, the law imposes fines against nightclubs and bars that allow smoking inside their establishments, and forces tobacco producers to include warning disclaimers on almost 80 percent of their entire cigarette packages—more than any country had ordered to date. Additionally, Vazquez, formerly an oncologist who himself fought an addiction to nicotine, raised taxes on tobacco sales.

Batllismo’s legacy endures today. Uruguay is now the most secular state in the Western Hemisphere.
The law was initially unpopular among smokers as well as bar and nightclub owners, who feared it would harm their business. However, according to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, smoking rates declined 4.3 annually between 2005 and 2011, while bars and nightclubs did not suffer any economic decline.

Nevertheless, Philip Morris International opposed the mandatory display of gruesome images and medical warnings on their packages, and sued Uruguay for $25 million in 2014. In the lawsuit, based on a 1991 trade agreement between Uruguay and Switzerland, where Phillip Morris International is based, the company accused Uruguay of breaching intellectual property rights. In the end, Phillip Morris pulled seven of its 12 products off Uruguayan shelves. While it remains to be seen who will win the lawsuit, Uruguay has received sweeping support from the Uruguayan population and NGOs such as Tobacco Free Kids and the Pan-American Health Organization.

As a result of these policies, Vazquez remained popular almost throughout his first presidency. In 2007, 60 percent of Uruguayans approved of his leadership. A year later, his approval dipped slightly to 56 percent but rose again to 61 percent in early 2009. With wide popular approval, many advocated for his re-election, though the constitution barred him from another consecutive term. At the end of his term in late 2009, Vazquez’s approval ratings had reached 80 percent, making him Latin America’s third most popular president after Brazil’s Inacio Lula Da Silva and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Local polling experts considered Vazquez’s popularity unprecedented, and nobody imagined that his successor could become even more popular.

Mujica had served in Vazquez’s administration as minister of agriculture and fisheries from 2005 until a Cabinet reshuffle in 2008, when he returned to Parliament as a senator. Divisions between the two men had already emerged when Mujica announced his presidential candidacy in 2008. Rather than back Mujica, Vazquez supported then-Finance Minister Danilo Astori as the Broad Front’s candidate. Mujica, however, had a larger appeal among the party’s support base and eventually beat Astori in the primaries; Astori eventually became Mujica’s running mate and Urguay’s vice president under Mujica.

Mujica’s background as a farmer and a Tupamaro, and the 13 years he spent in prison, all shaped his politics as president. Nevertheless, Mujica distanced himself from the populist left-wing governments of then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, and instead followed the center-left models of Brazil’s Lula Da Silva and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet in shaping his policies. Adopting the motto, “An honest government, a first-class country,” Mujica pledged to continue and further Vazquez’s economic policies. After winning the presidency with 52 percent of the vote, he invoked the Batllismo principle that power comes from below, saying, “It is a mistake to think that power comes from above, when it comes from within the hearts of the masses . . . it has taken me a lifetime to learn this.”

Mujica soon became known around the world for his progressive policies and personal charisma. Instead of enjoying the privileged lifestyle of most heads of state, he preferred to continue living in his modest farmhouse and drive a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle to his office. As noted earlier, he donated 90 percent of his salary to charity, earning him the title of the “world’s humblest president.” Uruguay also took a more active role in regional affairs, inviting Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador to join Mercosur, South America’s largest trade bloc; establishing friendlier bilateral relations with Argentina after a dispute over a pulp mill on the Uruguay River that serves as the two countries’ border; and assuming the pro-tempore presidency of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) between 2014 and 2015.

Pursuing economic policies that aimed to increase foreign direct investment as well as housing for the homeless, his administration saw steady growth in GDP, earning Uruguay better investment ratings from Standard & Poor’s.  But it was Mujica’s social policies, in particular the law that legalized state-controlled growth, sale and consumption of marijuana in an attempt to halt criminal activities by drug cartels, that earned him global recognition. The Mujica administration also updated divorce laws, decriminalized abortion and granted same-sex couples the right to marry.

International publications, from Monocle to TIME Magazine, showered Mujica with praise. In the eyes of the international press, the Mujica administration embodied true socialism, far from the populist government of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the demagoguery of Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

As Vazquez did in his first term, Mujica left office while still highly popular. Sixty-five percent of Uruguayans approved of his work when he passed the torch to Vazquez, who was elected again in November 2014 with 54 percent of the vote. Once the results were announced, Mujica joined the celebration at the Broad Front headquarters, which on its official Twitter account showed a picture of both leaders smiling with the caption “Tabare and Pepe together . . . Long live Uruguay!” and the hashtag “#UruguayNoseDetiene,” or “Uruguay does not stop.”

But the two leaders’ differences became more evident once Vazquez officially took power in March 2015. Though he pledged to carry out the progressive policies that defined Mujica’s term, including the state-run marijuana market that permits pharmacies to sell cannabis to registered consumers, Vazquez does not seem too eager about the initiative, calling it an “experimental process.” Moreover, in his first term, Vazquez had vetoed a law legalizing abortion, a decision Mujica subsequently overturned once he was in office. Though Vazquez would not dare opposing the already enacted law, and repealing abortion rights could provoke strife within his party, it is yet another marker of the two leaders’ divergences.

Vazquez’s foreign policy also differs sharply from his predecessor’s. Soon after he was sworn in, he announced that Uruguay would stop receiving Guantanamo prisoners, as well as Syrian refugees, because the country does not have the “infrastructure and cultural awareness” to welcome them. In contrast, when Mujica accepted five inmates from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, he stressed that refugees are always welcome in Uruguay and expressed his support for closing Guantanamo to President Barack Obama. In an interview with the BBC, Mujica said, “We can’t turn a blind eye to the tragedy of people being incommunicado for 12, 13 years without any form of warrant. This is a human shame.” When he learned of Vazquez’s decision to reject prisoners and refugees, Mujica limited his comments to suggesting that Vazquez “may have his own reasons” for doing so, but it is yet another point of discord.

Regionally, Vazquez sought to mediate the recent humanitarian and diplomatic crisis on the Colombia-Venezuela border, where thousands of Colombians residents of Venezuela were deported or fled after a Venezuelan against alleged smuggling operations. On Sept. 21, 2015, he called on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to settle their differences. In this case, the Vazquez administration operated alongside UNASUR, but did not rely on the grouping, which Mujica supported strongly, to usher in the dialogue. This has led several experts to believe that Vazquez will maintain a “sober distance” from traditional left-leaning nations.

Meanwhile, the country’s economic outlook has darkened due to the economic freefalls in Brazil and Argentina, two of Uruguay’s main trading partners. The resulting pressures on public expenditures exacerbated Vazquez and Mujica’s differences a month after the former took office. Although Uruguay has experienced steady economic growth in the past 12 years, Danilo Astori, once again the country’s finance minister, called for maintaining “internal fiscal prudence” in light of the economic crisis among Uruguay’s Mercosur partners. The feud between Vazquez and Mujica escalated and grew more public, leading Vazquez to call for a “truce” within the ruling party. But the need to balance social spending with a dimmed economic forecast is not the only challenge President Vazquez received from Mujica, prompting the current leader to rethink how Uruguay should maintain its progressive legacy.

What the Future Holds for Uruguay
Despite notable progress, Uruguay faces great challenges. The country received low scores from the Program for International Student Assessment, a worldwide study by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development that assesses scholastic performance in math, science and reading. Uruguay has seen teachers’ strikes over the past couple of years, while students failed to advance academically, something that even Mujica has recognized as one of his presidency’s biggest failures.

Although the government has sought to tackle crime by nationalizing the marijuana market and Uruguay is still considered one of the South America’s safest countries, insecurity remains one of the population’s top concerns. The homicide rate hovers at around 8 out of every 100,000 inhabitants, and theft has increased by 10 percent since 2014.

Uruguay’s small population, which has made it easier for the country to stand out as a regional leader in human development, might also becoming a liability. The 2011 census, the country’s most recent, showed that the populations of several towns had fallen by half. Fertility rates are low among women aged 30-34, who on average only give birth to one child, compared to a 2.5 child-per-household rate in 1996. Despite efforts to reach a population of 10 million, Uruguay is projected to barely exceed 4 million by 2050. Uruguayan youth and the country’s brightest talents are also leaving the country to find better opportunities. Consequently, its population is aging, which in turn burdens the national health care system.

Faced with these socio-economic woes, Vazquez announced a series of reforms and investment plans three months into his presidency. To address security concerns, he proposed the use of drones and helicopters to improve police surveillance. He also promised to continue policies initiated by Mujica to modernize law enforcement, while increasing police salaries, reducing mass incarceration, supporting victims of organized crime.

Heading the list of investment proposals was a plan to devote more than $12 billion to infrastructure development over the next five years. Because 34 percent of those funds would come from private-sector investment, with the remaining 66 percent coming from public funds, the plan would not require raising taxes. Of the proposed $12 billion, $4.2 billion will be allocated to energy initiatives, $2.3 billion to highway restoration, $1.8 billion to social infrastructure, $1.2 billion to housing purposes, $750 million to communications, $550 million to water and sanitation and $360 million to railroad infrastructure. Although the government announced that the Inter-American Development Bank would participate in these programs, it pledged not to take out foreign loans.

In its broad outlines, Vazquez’s plan hews to the proposal of Infraestructura Uruguay 2030, a nonpartisan project initiated in 2013 that includes engineers from the energy, highway, railroad and port sectors. As the name implies, the project analyzed the state of Uruguay’s infrastructure and how it can be improved by 2030. Some of the report’s highlights include the incorporation of renewable energies, including solar, biomass and wind power, and the strengthening of a regional electricity connection, notably with Brazil. By the report’s estimates, total infrastructure investment would reach a total of $36 billion by 2030, provided that the country enjoys 3.5 to 5 percent uninterrupted GDP growth over the next 15 years.

Port investment, according to the project, is paramount to Uruguay’s future economic development plans. For many years, Montevideo and Buenos Aires have been engulfed in what they call the “war of the ports” due to their geographic proximity, but that tension worsened following the pulp mill incident mentioned above. Both countries are supposed to coordinate their efforts to lower pollution levels of the Uruguay River. Instead, Argentina grew suspicious of Uruguay after Mujica authorized increased production at a Uruguayan-based pulp mill on the river. In retaliation, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner banned products that were disembarked at Uruguayan ports from being imported into Argentina, representing a loss of $100 million in annual revenues from these transfers. Infrastructure Uruguay 2030 advises current and future administrations to invest in the construction of new port terminals in La Charqueada and Tacuari in the eastern part of the country, as well as improving the Montevideo port’s capacity to increase traffic and handle larger containers. Finally, the report calls for the construction of wide dredges for larger ships, and concludes that an infrastructure overhaul cannot be achieved without education reform to generate the necessary human capital to shore up Uruguay’s economic development come 2030.

Fortuitously, education reform is one of the Vazquez administration’s most ambitious projects. He proposes bonuses or scholarships for students at state-run schools to continue their studies in private higher-education institutions. His plan would create support networks for students, strengthen the Ministry of Education, apply merit-based pay for teachers, and provide technical assistance to smooth the transition from elementary to middle and high school in order to halt high dropout rates. According to Vazquez, implementing these reforms will require 6 percent of the country’s GDP over the next five years. That would go to constructing new schools, or liceos, and full-time learning centers to enable more students aged 3 to 17 to complete 200 school days every year.

But not everybody welcomed his education plan. One of Uruguay’s powerful unions, the PIT-CNT, rejected the budget blueprint, in particular a measure capping teachers’ salaries, and called for several strikes between August and September 2014. In response, Vazquez issued an order that prohibited teachers from striking and forced them to return to classes, in seeming contrast with his expressed interest in maintaining an open dialogue to settle their differences. To date, the standoff has not been resolved.

Conclusion: Will Uruguay Remain Progressive?
Vazquez now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. His clash with the teachers’ union, recent economic stagnation and delays in the parliament’s budget approval have caused his approval ratings to drop dramatically, going from 53.6 percent in November 2014 to 29 percent in October 2015. But his plunging popularity is also driven by tensions within the Broad Front party, the challenges he inherited from Mujica’s administration, and, most importantly, the nostalgia with which Uruguayans recall Mujica’s presidency. The fact that Mujica has remained in the public eye as a senator since he left office has not helped matters for Vazquez.

In the eyes of the international press, the Mujica administration embodied true socialism.
In addition, Vazquez’s infrastructure plan has met some criticism. Some economists have pointed out that, since 1999, Uruguay has run an annual budget deficit of $1 billion, which would make it difficult to finance the state’s share of the proposed budget of $12 billion. It’s not clear whether Vazquez will be able to fill the gaps in the next five years. Critics argue that Uruguay’s highway grid needs a $4 billion investment, which is twice the amount the administration is proposing. Meanwhile, plummeting oil prices and highway tolls can’t cover the expenses; the proposed budget will not be enough to make ends meet. Uruguay must therefore rely on finding stronger markets than its Mercosur partners can currently offer.

In contrast to when Mujica was in office, Vazquez leans toward a more pragmatic approach that favors extractive industries and free trade. During his first term, he pursued a free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S. that the Broad Front did not support and therefore did not sign. This time, he wants to pursue an FTA with Japan, and will likely champion Uruguay’s transition from observer to full member of the Pacific Alliance, a grouping of four of the region’s more-liberal economies—Colombia, Chile, Peru and Mexico—that is one of Latin America’s most promising trade blocs. During the bloc’s seventh summit in 2013, Uruguay requested full membership, but Mercosur officials were quick to point out that any decision to join the Pacific Alliance would have to be approved by Uruguay’s Mercosur partners. This would be far from guaranteed, given that Argentina and Brazil have protectionist economic policies and administrations that mistrust a more globalized market.

At this point, Vazquez will have to look to Uruguay’s centuries-old progressive precepts and conciliatory approach, for both domestic and international matters. If his administration manages to turn Uruguay into a buffer between Mercosur, the Pacific Alliance and future free trade agreements with other nations, he would improve the chances of bringing foreign enterprises to invest in his infrastructure plan, thus closing any budget gaps. Also, Vazquez could try to bring high-skilled labor from other South American countries and foster high-paying jobs that would retain young talent within Uruguay’s borders. Though some economists have encouraged Vazquez to explore oil fields to generate more revenue, Uruguay should continue to incentivize other profitable industries, such as software, to lure new investors.

Domestically speaking, he will have to ease his position toward the country’s powerful and even legendary unions and find common ground to end the political deadlock on education reform. Though Mujica remains active in Uruguayan politics as a senator, Vazquez has four more years to develop his own brand of progressivism that espouses effective public policies and economic development, as he originally promised in his presidential campaign. This may increase the chances of maintaining harmony within the Broad Front.

Although the state of Uruguayan politics makes its destiny uncertain, other countries in the Americas are already adopting elements of Uruguay’s progressive model. In the United States, many states have legalized marijuana consumption, and the Mexican Supreme Court legalized the possession and consumption of marijuana for recreational purposes. Other countries are adopting draconian anti-tobacco legislation, and Colombia recently approved a law that allows same-sex couples to adopt children. All eyes are looking to Latin America to see how Uruguay’s progressive momentum will inspire other nations, and whether Vazquez will uphold these ideals in the country of their origin during the rest of his presidency.

Robert Valencia is a contributing writer for Global Voices and a frequent commentator on Latin American affairs for Al Jazeera America, Voice of America, Univision, NTN24 and other Spanish and English-speaking media outlets. He’s currently a National Urban Fellow.

World Politics Review ` USA -  19 noviembre 2015