Turning Activists into Voters in Uruguay: Frente Amplio and José Mujica

[Judi Lynn]

Turning Activists into Voters in Uruguay: Frente Amplio and José Mujica
Written by Benjamin Dangl
Thursday, 03 December 2009

Torrential rain didn’t keep voters away from the polls on Sunday, November 29th when José "Pepe" Mujica was elected president with 52% of the vote. The 74-year-old Agricultural Minister spent 14 years in jail for his participation in the Tupamaro guerilla movement, and has pledged to continue the policies of his predecessor, current left-leaning president Tabaré Vásquez. Mujica also promised that while president, he would return to his farm outside the capital city at least 5 hours a week to tend his flowers and vegetables.
"It's the model of Lula," Alfredo Garcé of the University of the Republic in Montevideo said of Mujica’s strategy. "To win the elections he put on an Armani suit and said he wanted a government of the left but moderate to permit a political economy respectful of capitalism." Garcé said, before the results of Sunday’s election were known, "It's not Mujica they were voting for – he will win because of the party."<1>

However charismatic and popular Mujica is, he owes a lot to the Frente Amplio (Broad Front), a political party that over it’s nearly 40 years in existence has transformed the political and social landscape of the country, from the grassroots to the presidential palace.

The Frente Amplio’s Long Road

The Frente Amplio (FA) began as a broad coalition of leftists that pulled together the Christian Democrat, Socialist and Communist parties of the country in 1971. At the very beginning, the FA founders said the "fundamental objective of Frente Amplio is permanent political action and not electoral competition." As part of that direction, the FA began nation-wide networks of Base Committees to open up the political process to more people, allowing for direct democracy from below, fewer political intermediaries, and grassroots power over decisions within the FA as a movement.<2> Two primary goals of the FA from the start were land reform and a stronger public sector. The coalition faced widespread repression under the dictatorship, which began in 1973. After surviving this period, it emerged as a political force after the dictatorship ended in 1984. The Uruguayan left and the FA’s base committees continued to grow throughout the 1980s.<3>

The Uruguayan left was further sparked to action in a movement for justice regarding the dictatorship, an issue many people united behind in 1986 when a "law of impunity" was passed, protecting the dictatorship’s members. This human rights movement participated in a referendum to get rid of the law. 25% of voters’ signatures were needed to convoke this referendum. Uruguayan analyst Raúl Zibechi writes, "To achieve this, neighborhood activists combed the country, going house-to-house, to dialogue with neighbors and explain what the law was about and to ask for their signatures. Some 30,000 activists participated in the door-to-door campaign. They visited 80% of Uruguay’s households; spoke with over one million people; and in some cases had to return two, three and even seven times to obtain a signature." Though the referendum failed (42% were against the law, 52% were for it) it led many activists to become more familiar with their country, their fellow citizens, and to achieve a political presence in rural areas. This development also aided in the electoral advances of the Uruguayan left.<4>

The momentum of these years resulted in part in the election of Tabaré Vázquez as the mayor of Montevideo, the capital city, in 1989. When Vásquez took office in 1990 he established a broad network of organizations and methods to bring participation from the people into the local government. Communal councils were designed to actively monitor government operations, participate in budget-making, as well as design projects, consider laws and policies at the grassroots level.<5>

Another event that empowered the Uruguayan left was a referendum organized in 1992 regarding a law that would have put the national telephone company and other public-run services under private control. The referendum politicized people, spread awareness and galvanized movements and unions against the move. As a result, 72% of the population voted against the law.<6>

More:
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1779/1/