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Uruguay The Lacalle Administration
A climate of labor unrest, imminent economic crisis,
and
growing activism on the political left confronted Lacalle
when he
assumed office on March 1, 1990. Lacking a parliamentary
majority, he formed a "European-style" coalition, called
National
Coincidence (Coincidencia Nacional), with the Colorado
Party, the
first such interparty sharing of power in a
quarter-century.
Nevertheless, the two parties were able to agree only on
sharing
four cabinet appointments and supporting the new
government's
fiscal-reform measures.
Lacalle gave the posts of ministers of housing and
social
promotion, industry and energy, public health, and tourism
to the
Colorado Party in exchange for the necessary support in
the
General Assembly for approving various controversial
projects
regarding education, the fiscal deficit, and the right to
strike-
-measures that labor unions and the left opposed. Lacalle
chose
Mariano Brito, a law professor with no previous government
service, as his defense minister; Enrique Braga, one of
his
principal economic advisers, as his economy and finance
minister;
Héctor Gros Espiell, a lawyer-diplomat, as his foreign
affairs
minister; and Juan Andrés Ramírez, a lawyer-professor who
had not
previously occupied any key position, as his interior
minister.
At the top of Lacalle's policy priorities were regional
economic integration and moving Uruguay toward a market
economy,
largely through privatization of inefficient state
enterprises
and through free trade
(see Foreign Policy in 1990
, this
ch.).
Unlike his predecessor, however, Lacalle found himself
confronted
with a Marxist mayor of Montevideo, whose Broad Front
coalition
was opposed to economic restructuring. By mid-1990 the
prospects
for a "co-habitation arrangement" between the neoliberal,
rightof -center president and Vázquez appeared poor. Shortly
after
taking their respective offices, the two leaders publicly
clashed
on departmental government prerogatives. Vázquez sought to
pursue
autonomous policies in areas such as transportation,
public
works, and health and to decentralize power in Montevideo
Department. Lacalle opposed Vázquez's attempts to expand
his
departmental powers, arguing that a more powerful mayor of
Montevideo would undermine the position of the executive
branch.
The confrontation that effectively ended the co-habitation
arrangement took place over Montevideo's new budget, which
Lacalle threatened to block.
Data as of December 1990
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