> Oh, and you also keep forgetting to acknowledge that it's not just a
> matter of stupidity and cowardice. Take a look at the left's election
> victory in Uruguay. The new government's choices boil down to trying
> some kind of left program and facing a capital strike and economic
> crisis or trying the Lula approach of moderation and facing failure
> and defeat. You act as if it's just a matter of fidelity and will,
> and we face no structural constraints at all in the real world. It's
> a lot easier to call other people stupid, isn't it?
--------------------------------
Right, and on that subject:
November 2, 2004 NEWS ANALYSIS Tiptoeing Leftward: Uruguayan Victor's Moment of Truth By LARRY ROHTER New York Times
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Nov. 1 - After a 33-year struggle, the left has finally gained power here. But if the experience of a neighboring country like Brazil is any guide, Tabaré Vázquez and his Broad Front, narrow winners in the election on Sunday, are more likely to tinker around the edges of Uruguay's problems than carry out the profound social transformation they have been promising.
Dr. Vázquez's coalition is a rather ungainly beast, ranging from Communists to Christian Democrats, and he has sought to keep its various components happy with declarations that can be interpreted in many different ways. But his victory has awakened expectations of immediate change that are likely to be fanned by those on the left, which includes former Tupamaro guerrillas.
At the same time, Dr. Vázquez lacks the financial resources he needs to fulfill those promises, which in turn constrains his political maneuverability. So what will he turn out to be: an unpredictable populist like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, or a fiscal disciplinarian like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil?
"As they say at bullfights, this is the hour of truth," said Luis Eduardo González, a pollster and prominent political commentator. "There has been a lot of dubious rhetoric" about a social revolution, he said, but if Dr. Vázquez and other Front leaders knuckle under to the harsh realities facing this country of 3.5 million, "they will have to deny their own past history."
One change clearly in the offing, because it has no political cost, is in relations with Washington and Wall Street. The current president, Jorge Batlle, has been widely criticized for pursuing closer ties with the United States in response to the economic collapse that hit neighboring Argentina three years ago and quickly spilled over here, nearly bringing down a financial system that had, following American advice, opened itself up to the outside world.
"It was a costly error to think that this country could ever be a kind of Luxembourg on the River Plata," said Senator José Mújica, leader of the Front's dominant Tupamaro faction. "That can never work, because our neighbors are Brazil and Argentina, not France and Germany."
A week ago, the deputy United States trade negotiator, Peter Allgeier, was here to sign an investment treaty with Uruguay. But with Dr. Vázquez's victory, doubts about the future of the accord, which needs approval by a Congress in which the Front will have a majority in both houses, are suddenly being raised.
"We are not familiar with this treaty," Dr. Vázquez said when asked at a news conference here on Friday whether he supported the agreement. "We will only be able to respond after we have had a chance to see and analyze it."
And while the Front has backed away from its support of an Argentine-style default on the country's foreign debt, Dr. Vázquez has said he will insist that the International Monetary Fund ease up on Uruguay. Everyone, he said last week, needs to show "profound social sensibility to deal with the social emergency the country faces," including the international community.
For the most part, though, the new government is likely to follow a program of economic orthodoxy. In recent interviews, Sen. Danilo Astori, a moderate whom Dr. Vázquez has designated as his economy minister, has repeatedly said he plans to "follow the example of Lula," a reference to President da Silva of Brazil and the market-friendly policies he has pursued.
"It won't be a copy of Brazil, but we also think it is possible to change the country while being prudent in managing public accounts and maintaining stability in monetary and foreign exchange policy," Senator Astori said in an interview here late last week. "Uruguay is much more vulnerable than Brazil and has a much weaker economy, so we will have to be much more cautious than Brazil."
The promise to follow Brazil's conservative fiscal example has reassured many of the money managers who feared the worst when Mr. da Silva was elected two years ago. "Everything is normal," one banker said. "Nobody is nervous, and money isn't leaving the country."
But Mr. da Silva's example also illustrates the pitfalls of promising profound, almost immediate, change and then failing to deliver. In municipal elections on Sunday, his Workers' Party lost not only in São Paulo, Brazil's largest city and the party's birthplace, but also in Porto Alegre, a onetime stronghold where the Workers' Party had been in power for 16 years.
"The front has to carry out the program it promised us," said María Antonia Bello, 66, a widow who has seen the value of her pension reduced drastically by the economic crisis. "If not, the people will protest, and when it comes time to vote again, we will throw them out. We're not going to accept another neoliberal government, indifferent to people's social needs."
But it is precisely the restoration of those health, education and housing benefits cut by past governments that will be most difficult to carry out. "We have criticized things that we are going to have to carry out ourselves," Mr. Astori acknowledged. "It's going to be just like in Brazil."
No need to worry; the situation is manageable, argues Mr. Mújica, who is expected to be appointed production minister, overseeing activities ranging from agriculture to industry. After waiting a generation for the front to assume power, he said, most of its supporters on the traditional left do not expect miracles and can be persuaded to be patient.
"This supposed dichotomy is a bit puerile and simplistic," he said. "What people outside our coalition don't understand is that even though we have built a culture of diversity of opinion over the past 30 years, when we make a decision, we carry it out. If the day comes when there is something I can't accept, then I will go home."
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