URUGUAY. A ROLE MODEL FOR THE LEFT?

Abstract

Nobody was really surprised by the outcome of the 2004 presidential elec-tion in Uruguay. Yet, this will unquestionably be remembered as an histor-ical election. For the very first time in Uruguay’s 176 years as anindependent state, a party other than the two “traditional” ones (the Blancoand the Colorado) won the presidency. This time the winner was the cen-ter-left party Encuentro Progresista–Frente Amplio–Nueva Mayoría(EP–FA–NM), a party composed of Socialists, former Tupamaro guerrillas,Communists, Christian Democrats, and other smaller political groups.Traditional parties have governed Uruguay for 168 years, authoritarian rulebeing a real exception in Uruguayan history. This change will probably haveprofound implications for the political life of the country. However, in spiteof its scale, this electoral earthquake took place calmly and the transition tothe new government was remarkably smooth (Altman and Castiglioni 2006). While two years do not provide enough leverage to substantiate conclu-sive arguments about the future of the Frente Amplio (FA) or its govern-ment, this small country provides a rich milieu to examine the project’stheoretical framework. Basically, given that it is problematic to frame theFrente Amplio as either a “good” or “bad” left (Castañeda 2006), the evi-dence presented in this chapter seems to support the idea that more thantwo types of leftist governments co-exist today in Latin America. Moreover,at least for the Uruguayan case, the evidence shows more than two types of left co-existing within the Frente’s government.