The military returns to the wings The victory of the bourgeois Colorado Party in the November 24 general elections, after more than ten years of military dictatorship, gave rise to a cacaphony of interpretations, in which at times there was a perceptible note of disillusionment. Some saw in this victory the proof that, basically, the Uruguayan people are more moderate and conservative than it seemed at the time of the street demonstrations and actions. Others offered a more banal explanation, referring to the personal charisma of Julio Sanguinetti, the Colorado leader who was elected president of the country with 38% of the vote, as against 33% for the candidate of the other bourgeois party, the National, or Blanco Party.
The election results pose two fundamental questions: Why did the Colorados win? Was the campaign of the left, grouped in the Frente Amplio, a correct and effective one from the standpoint of the interests of the masses? These two questions deserve more serious answers than the sort of superficialities that have been bandied about because they concern not only the past, that is, what happened in the elections, but also the future, that is, what will happen around the formation of the government in March? The second question is all the more important because the new president has made calls for the formation of a "broad government of transition and chaos. It was rather between the perspective of a controlled transfer of powers with truncated liberties, on the one hand, and a real democratic break from the dictatorship, based on mobilization of the masses, on the other.
This is why the Naval Club accords, which eliminated the second alternative, are the key for understanding the election results. For all practical purposes, these agreements amounted to accepting the Colorados' views and their project. That is, they had the following effects.
They held back social polarization and radicalization.
- They created a division in the antidictatorial front, with the Blanco Party refusing to sign them and a significant part of the Frente Amplio rejecting them.
- They modified the relationship of forces in favor of the bourgeois and moderate elements.
The Naval Club accords were complemented by the expectations created around the National Programmatic Coordination (CONAPRO), which was supposed to carry the political accord into the social sphere. In this way, the fight for immediate economic demands was sacrificed to the vicissitudes of this sort of summit negotiations. Moreover, in order to eliminate any element that might create problems in the electoral period, the congress of the PIT, initially scheduled for September, was postponed until after the elections.
This whole series of accords and the logic it created, thus, swelled the sails of the Colorados. Since their project began to be put into practice before the elections, it seemed logical that they would be the best able to carry it through.
On the other hand, over and above the intricacies of a particularly tricky and complicated electoral system, the results reveal some interesting facts that were overshadowed by the Sanguinetti victory. For example, the combined vote of the Frente Amplio and the Blanco Party majority, both of which are favorable to a general amnesty and to reestablishment of unrestricted democratie rights, was higher than that for the Colorado Party.
This fact alone proves that there are still possibilities for mobilizing the masses behind radical democratic demands, which cannot be won through elections alone.
What is more, the Colorado Party has only 13 seats in the Senate, as against 17 for the Frente Amplio and the Blanco. Party. In the Chamber of Deputies, the Colorado Party has 41 seats, the Blancos 35 and the Frente Amplio 22. (2)
The November 24 elections nonetheless marked an important turn in the 1. See International Viewpoint, December 10, 1984. 2. Weekly Report, Latin American Newsletters, London, December 7, 1984.
International Viewpoint 28 January 1984 national understanding." Daniel JEBRAC
With the wearing out of the military dictatorship, three different perspectives were present in the November 1984 elections. The first was that of the military itself, the institutionalization of the dictatorship that was already codified in the 1980 draft constitution, and rejected in a plebiscite in a vote that, in fact, dealt the military its first defeat.
The second perspective was that of the traditional bourgeois parties, the Colorados and the Blancos, who wanted to replace a worn out and discredited military dictatorship with an authoritarian parliamentary regime, but without making any radical break in the continuity of the repressive institutions and the special powers laws.
The third road was that of intransigent struggle for democratic demands, focused around the call for free elections without any restrictions, exiles, political prisoners, and without anyone being deprived of his or her political rights. (1)
The negotiations between the military and the traditional parties had failed in 1983, but in 1984 an agreement was reached. Facing the rise and radicalization of the mass movement, the military resigned themselves to accepting the scheme of the traditional parties as the lesser evil. It called for a withdrawal of the army to its barracks and a gradual change in the dictatorship. The aim was to head off a social explosion and a real "democratic opening," with a repressive regime locked in confronta22 tion with the mobilized masses. This was the meaning of the so-called Naval Club accords, which set the rules for the elections in August 1984.
Up to the start of 1984, the Blanco Party's scheme coincided essentially with that of the Colorado Party. The nationalist "left turn" reflected by the Blancos' refusal to sign the Naval Club accords was in fact designed to achieve a better division of labor within the bourgeoisie itself on the eve of the elections. It was also aimed at challenging the popular movement's leadership of the antidictatorial struggle so as to better steal the prestige of the struggle later on. Opposition bourgeoisie takes initiative
More fundamentally, the broad anti-dictatorial united front that had taken form over 1983 began to divide as a class pole emerged more and more clearly within it. This was reflected in the rally of November 1983 and the general strike of January 18, 1984, organized by the Interunion Workers Plenum (PIT), and in the 1984 May Day demonstration, at which the representatives of the bourgeois parties were excluded from the official rostrum.
After that, the opposition bourgeoisie pulled out all the stops to build up a bogey of civil war in order to make its proposal for transition to a civilian regime seem the only realistic alternative. Nonetheless, the real alternative was not between a negotiated realistic
situation and the opening of a new era. The dictatorship is withdrawing from the stage, while an important part of its legacy remains in place - the repressive forces and restrictive legislation. However, there is no simple continuity of the old situation but a real change, which is above all the result of the mass mobilization.
The element of continuity lies essentially in the fact that this government, like the previous one, is still supported by imperialist finance capital and its local allies. Sanguinetti has gotten a redcarpet reception from the Association of Banks, and his government will accept the demands of the IMF tamely enough.
So, the masses have to expect that the new government will try to impose antilabor schemes and they have to prepare to defend the people's demands against this government. Such a perspective thus, from the standpoint of defending the interests of the masses of workers and the poor, excludes any possibility of critical support for the government and still more any coalition with the Colorado majority in a government of national unity.
For his part, Sanguinetti has been clear. As soon as he was elected, he began raising the perspective of a national unity coalition to consolidate the reconquest of democracy. For such unity, he
ALPA International Viewpoint 28 January 1984 proposed as the minimum condition the implementation of essential financial measures, initiatives to reactivate the economy, and measures to assure the regular functioning of the institutions.
In an interview published in the December 18 issue of l'Unita, the Italian Communist Party daily, Sanguinetti clearly dotted the "i's" on the three crucial questions of an amnesty, economic measures and relations with the armed forces.
On amnesty, he said: "We have said that Uruguay should undertake a program of national pacification, which involves an amnesty law. This amnesty should apply to all those imprisoned since 1973 for purely political reasons....Moreover, all the exiles should be able to return to the country in security and with understanding. But in my opinion an amnesty cannot include those who belonged to guerrilla organizations and tried to destroy democratic institutions by force and violence before 1973, at least not those who were involved in shedding blood. For such people, we might consider an act of generosity by the society that could lead to pardon, but not a clearing of their records."
With regard to the economic measures to be taken by the future civilian government, Sanguinetti excluded any possibility of refusing to pay the foreign debt
Demonstration for amnesty in Uruguay (DR)
and even the idea of a moratorium on payments. He also opposed measures that would violate the prerogatives of private property. He said quite clearly: "As for the foreign debt, we can neither disregard it nor disavow it."
Finally, on relations with the armed forces, Sanguinetti adopted a technocratic language, stating: We must seek a qualitative and quantitative reform of the armed forces. In recent years they have increased from 35,000 to 68,000 men. This sort of growth cannot be undone by the stroke of a pen, without throwing 30,000 youth who are today in uniform on the streets as unemployed....We have to take account of this and reestablish a mechanism for subordinating the military structure to the political authority."
The clarity of this scheme leaves little room for the Blanco Party or the Frente Amplio to enter a government of national unity, whatever may be the desires of some of the leaders of these two formations. i Sanguinetti has understood this, and in fact envisages the formation of an all-Colorado government. Along. side this, is to be set up an organ for ongoing Social Coordination, through which "national unity" will be implemented. Toward a test of strength
The aim of such a body would be to continue to neutralize the mass movement, as the National Programmatic Coordination did before the elections.
In this situation, the danger that hangs over the Frente Amplio is that it may slide from electoralist illusions into parliamentary cretinism. Nonetheless, the vote it received in the elections represents a consolidation and improvement of the score it achieved in 1971, before the 1973 military coup d'etat. The Frente Amplio's vote went from 304,000 in 1971 to 410,000. In Montevideo alone [nearly half the population of under 3 million lives in the capital], the Frente Amplio got almost as many votes as it did in the entire country in 1971, and its vote in the provinces doubled.
This success gave the coup de grace to the bourgeois two-party system, in a context where the Colorado Party is far from having achieved a clear mandate and the economic crisis keeps the possibility of a test of strength among social forces on the agenda.
The first acute question left unresolved by the elections is that of an amnesty and democratic freedoms. The demonstration of 200,000 persons on December 24 to demand total amnesty illustrates the vitality of this sort of mobilization for democratic demands. It indicates that the struggle may resume its course after the halt imposed by the Naval Club accords, and that it may wrest from the incoming government what the new authorities are by no means inclined to grant of their own accord.
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