Luis Lacalle Pou: “Uruguay cannot face one half with the other”

A few minutes before 12 noon, Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou went to vote at the Liceo Guadalupe, in the department of Canelones (bordering Montevideo).

Before entering the Lyceum, he greeted all the people waiting for him outside and stopped taking several selfies and photos with cell phones. At that time, there was a chorus that shouted “President, President!”. Meanwhile, he was moving towards the gates of the institution to cast his vote. He placed the envelope with the ballot he chose in front of the cameras.

On leaving, in dialogue with the press, he declared that this March 27 “is a special day, surely as happens in all Uruguayan electoral events, with a lot of passion and enthusiasm, understanding our democracy, which is all the time, but more on the face of the skin on election day”. The president added that this is “what makes Uruguay strong,” reported the newspaper El País.

He was also asked what they think the results will be at the end of the day and, in that regard, Lacalle Pou said: “It is not my place to take stock, but I am simply going to give some opinions respecting the ban, which I think are important for the good of all Uruguayans.”

“You get here, as we have said many times, with a Uruguay that cannot change one half for another or face one half with another. We come here with a law that has many articles, many of which are in force in Parliament. Obviously you already know what my position is, but this is not the time to talk about it, for logical reasons,” he added.

Regarding whether there will be dialogue with the Broad Front, the coalition of left-wing parties and the main driver of the referendum after the results were known, he commented that “dialogue was always open, there is always dialogue.” He argued that “such is the case that this law has a large percentage of articles voted by all, and that is not less, because many of them were improved and changed in Parliament.”

The president announced that he will give a speech to citizens from the Executive Tower once the results are known.

After his vote, Lacalle Pou will continue his tradition of each election, having lunch at the García family, a friendly family. The menu is “lamb, but very small so as not to invite the press”.

Currently, with 82% of circuits broadcasting at 12:00, the percentage of voters reaches 36% of the list of qualified, the Minister of the Electoral Court, José Garchitorena, reported on Twitter.

The case of Progreso

Lacalle Pou was asked about what happened with the Uruguayan football club Progreso. He issued a statement yesterday in which he accused the police of entering during a football match last Friday to look for “political material” in the club's official store.

“It's an attack on the police. They are going to say that they were looking for ballots, but there was nothing unusual,” the director of Coexistence and Citizen Security of the Ministry of the Interior, Santiago González, told the newspaper El País yesterday.

President Lacalle Pou was consulted after voting on what happened with Progreso, to which he replied that “obviously the direct response would have a political background, but we are in a ban. Does anyone think that the National Police is going to make a search of lists or advertising, on a football field?”

He added that he was in charge of talking to the police authorities and that, as far as he knows, it was a regular routine procedure in which items such as pyrotechnics and drugs are searched.

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