Uruguay
A Colorado Party leader called for a return to social Batllism to regain popular support
Jesús Viera said in a statement published by El Telégrafo that the Colorado Party moved away from its reformist tradition and ceded ground among popular sectors. He proposed a social-democratic agenda to reconnect with workers and lower-income households.
The Colorado Party national convention member Jesús Viera said in a statement published by El Telégrafo that the political force is going through a distancing from the doctrinal foundations of Batllism and that this process favored the consolidation of the Frente Amplio among the popular classes.
According to Viera, the original Batllism of José Batlle y Ordóñez was based on regulated capitalism and on a State with active intervention in favor of the most disadvantaged sectors. In that framework, he said the Colorado Party’s shift toward technocratic and deregulating positions ended up emptying its historical representation in terms of social protection.
Still according to the statement, that loss of presence among workers and urban peripheries would not be due to an organic change in Uruguayan society, but to the abandonment of its own political tradition. Viera supported that argument with quotes from Batlle y Ordóñez on the defense of the weak and the weight of the popular judgment of the humblest sectors.
As a way out, he proposed updating Batllism with a social-democratic agenda inspired by the Nordic countries. Among the priorities, he mentioned regulating platform work at companies such as PedidosYa and Uber, with health coverage, accident insurance, pension rights and union freedom.
He also called for strengthening public education with budgetary and infrastructure focus in critical contexts, as well as universalizing public care infrastructure within the National Care System. In Viera’s view, that shift would be the way for the Colorado Party to once again compete for support among lower-income sectors.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
