ABSTRACT

Uruguay is situated on the north bank of the Río de la Plata estuary, between the east bank of the River Uruguay and the Atlantic Ocean, adjoining Brazil to the north-east. Area: 176,215sq km (68,037sq miles); capital: Montevideo; language: Spanish; population: 3,341,521, mainly of European descent; religion: Roman Catholic 75%, Protestant 2%. Constitution: Under the 1966 Constitution, the Republic has an executive President who is assisted by a Vice-President and an appointed Council of Ministers. Legislative power is vested in a National Congress consisting of a 99-member Chamber of Deputies and a 31-member Senate (30 senators plus the Vice-President, who presides over Senate business but is also permitted to vote). The President and Vice-President are elected for a five-year term by direct universal suffrage on a run-off system. The President cannot be re-elected. Under a constitutional reform passed in 1996, parties must choose their presidential candidates by open primary elections that take place simultaneously for all parties on the last Sunday of April of the year of the presidential election. Senators and deputies are elected by proportional representation for fixed five-year terms. Senators are elected from a national constituency and deputies from the 19 departmental (provincial) sub-divisions. Under Uruguayan electoral law, the electorate votes in congressional elections for factions within each party itself. Parties usually present a large number of lists of candidates for the two chambers of parliament and congressmen represent both their faction and their party. Congressional party discipline necessitates co-ordination between the party’s factions. Provincial (departmental) elections take place in May of the year following the general election. Voting is compulsory for all citizens from the age of 18. History: The independence of the Eastern Republic of the Uruguay was recognized in 1830 after a period in which its territory was the subject of a dispute between Argentina and Brazil. Internal politics were then dominated by the struggle between the liberal Colorado (red) (PC) and conservative Blanco (white) (or National, PN) parties, giving rise to civil wars throughout the 19th century. The Colorados held power continuously from 1865 to 1958 before giving way to the Blancos. However, in 1904 José Batlle y Ordóñez successfully broke the cycle of violence and ushered in a new era of stability and social reform. Having visited Switzerland, he became a strong advocate of collegial government. The first collegiate government, introduced in 1919, broke down when Colorado President Gabriel Terra dissolved Congress and assumed dictatorial powers to combat the Great Depression. In 1951 a national referendum ushered in a second period of collegiate government. However, after nearly two decades of economic stagnation, the presidency was restored in 1967. This change came too late, however, to cut short the rise of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, generally known as the Tupamaros. Any illusion that Uruguay could remain ‘the Switzerland of Latin America’ in a continent increasingly ruled by dictatorships was shattered when in 1971 laws curtailing civil liberties were introduced to give the army a free hand. Two years later, in 1973, the armed forces took power. Though they retained a figurehead civilian President, Juan

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María Bordaberry, who was an admirer of the Spanish dictator Franco, they dissolved Congress and replaced it with an appointed Council of State. Although by 1976 the military promised a return to democracy, their regime of terror continued, with an estimated 6,000 political opponents imprisoned and subjected to torture, of whom some 900 died.