Presidency of Luis Lacalle Pou

Lacalle Pou, at the time of his election, was a 19-year member of the General Assembly: from 2000 to 2015 he served as a National Representative and from 2015 to 2019 as a Senator.[3] In 2011, he held the position of President of the Chamber of Representatives during the first session of the 47th Legislature.[4] He participated in the 2014 election, being defeated in the second round by Tabaré Vázquez.[5]

Facing the 2019 runoff election, Lacalle Pou led the Coalición Multicolor, an electoral alliance made up of center-right parties.[6] Lacalle Pou and his running-mate, Beatriz Argimón obtained 48.71% of the unofficial vote. Their opponents, Daniel Martínez and Graciela Villar obtained 47.51% of the vote. The Electoral Court of Uruguay would publish the official results by Friday, 29 November 2019, as observed votes were still to be counted, totaling more than the difference between the two candidates, thus being too close to call. Daniel Martinez did not concede the race then, awaiting the official count. Lacalle Pou unofficially declared himself the winner, as the votes already counted marked an irreversible trend. Martínez conceded defeat on 28 November 2019. On 30 November, final votes counts confirmed Lacalle Pou as the winner with 48.8% of the total votes cast over Martínez with 47.3%.[7] Lacalle Pou's victory marked the return of the National Party to power, 30 years after Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, Lacalle Pou's father, assumed as president.[8][9]

Several international leaders reacted to Lacalle Pou for his victory. Congratulations came from the President and the elect-President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri and Alberto Fernández, the Acting President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, the President of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez, the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the Peruvian, Martín Vizcarra, the Paraguayan, Mario Abdo Benítez, and the Costa Rican Carlos Alvarado Quesada.[10][11] In addition, the Mexican Secretary of Foreign, Marcelo Ebrard and the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also congratulated the newly elected president.[12]

On 2 December 1900 elected president Luis Lacalle Pou met up with outgoing president Tabaré Vázquez in the Executive Tower to begin the transition process.[13][14] The next day the same process started in the Parliament, between outgoing vice president Lucía Topolansky and elected vicepresident Beatriz Argimón.[15]

On 10 December Lacalle Pou travelled together with president Vázquez to attend the inauguration of Argentine president Alberto Fernández.[16][17] Some days later he publicly announced his predicted cabinet, made up by members of Multicolor Coalition parties.[18]

Law No. 19889 of urgent consideration, also called "Law of Urgent Consideration" or abbreviated as "LUC", is a law whose bill was announced by President Lacalle Pou during the campaign, which aims to lay the foundations of his administration. This law was the subject of intense political debate between the ruling party and the opposition:

• Modify legitimate defense in the Penal Code, increasing its concept and establishing new hypotheses in which legitimate defense is presumed.[33][34]
• Increase penalties for crimes related to drug trafficking and sexual violence in all its forms.[34]
• Punish injury or damage to police.[33][34]
• Grant retired police and military personnel the right to carry arms.[33]
• Limit occupations of public spaces and "pickets".[33][34]
• Increase penalties for minor offenders.[33]
• Reorganize public education, with the Central Board of Directors (CODICEN) consolidating the powers of primary, secondary, University of Labor of Uruguay (UTU) and teacher training councils, which now become directories.[33]
• Modify the Financial Inclusion Law (LIF), letting workers opt to receive payment in cash rather than electronic means. In addition, the amount above which business payments must be effected electronically is raised to one million indexed units.[33]
• Create the Ministry of Environment, one of the campaign promises of Luis Lacalle Pou's team.[33]
• Limit occupations of workplaces, guaranteeing the right of non-strikers to access and work, and that of employers to enter the facilities freely.[33]
• Establish a commission for the reform of the social welfare system.[33]
• Guarantee the right to mobile number portability.[35]

In October 2020 several social and political organizations announced that they were going to promote a referendum to repeal 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration.[36] After the campaign to collect support signatures to invoke the referendum ended, on 8 July 2021 the president of the national trade union confederation PIT-CNT announced that 763,443 signatures were collected and would be delivered that day after the Electoral Court to be validated.[37] On 8 December 2021 the Electoral Court completed the validation procedure of the signatures and because the minimum signatures threshold to summon a referendum was reached, it called for a referendum to be held on 27 March 2022.[38] After the referendum was held, the "NO" option won with 50.02% and therefore the 135 articles intended to be repealed were kept.[39]

Since July 2020 two regulatory public bodies, the Regulatory Unit of Energy and Water Services (URSEA) and the Regulatory Unit of Communication Services (URSEC) that were created during the presidency of Jorge Batlle, are not subordinated offices under the Executive anymore and from then they are decentralized services. Thus they gained their own legal authonomy and personhood. This was made in order to not have then subject to political issues and to make them structurally, functionally and budgetary independent. The new regulatory system as decentalized services also implies that they are now led by a board of directors according the Constitution.[40]

Since the inauguration of this presidency on 1 March 2020, the number of attachés to each ministry were reduced from 86 to 42 in August 2020. The reduction of attachés was part of the electoral program promises of the National Party. The attachés are persons who can be directly hired by the ministries as confidence personnel without being limited by number, but they are not able to become public servants. This kind of relationship was created by a budgetary law during the first year of the presidency of José Mujica and they are usually university graduates.[41] However, their number increased to 47 by 31 December 2020 [42] and to 56 by July 2022.[43]

Starting from 13 March 2020 the "MEC Centers" (Centros MEC) cultural centers closed their doors. The minister of Education and Culture Pablo da Silveira intended to close them since 2018 before he was not even minister. The MEC Centers were a network of 127 centers created during the first presidency of Tabaré Vázquez and developed in the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) in coordination with the departmental governments, in order to decentralize the public policies on culture by opening cultural centers in several cities of the interior of Uruguay, each one managed authonomously with locals' needs in mind.[44] But with the Budget Law of 2020 in the end they were permanently suppressed.[45] During a parliamentary discussion of the Budget Law draft, the minister of Education and Culture Pablo da Silveira stood up for this measure arguing that these centers were a "kind of independent republic" and that their politics "did not coincide" with what the Ministry was intending to do. Also alleged that these centers were "misusing public funds".[46] This change was condemned by the Broad Front legislators, among them member of parliament Gabriel Otero twitted saying that "67 cities were left without MEC Centers, they destroyed them without thinking about the people, without culture there is no future".[45]

Meanwhile, MEC Centers remained closed and waiting their final elimination, the Urgent Consideration Law created in its 202nd article a new system of national cultural institutions to promote different cultural expressions, to be overseen by the Directorate of Culture of the Ministry of Education and Culture:[47]

In July 2021 minister Da Silveira said that the MEC Centers were suppressed because they were "problemantic" and they would be replaced by "a strategy that is more global, more ambitious that changes the perspective", and that the current administration did not want "to work for the [Uruguayan] interior, but together with them". The new system of decentralized cultural centers began to be deployed at the beginnings of 2022 due to the delay of COVID-19 pandemic, and the first National Cultural Center (CCN) designated was the Municipal Cultural Complex of Dolores.[48]

On March 16, 2020, more than 1,000 soldiers of the Armed Forces were deployed to carry out the "Safe Border" operation, which consisted of patrolling the country's the 35,000 square kilometers of border defined to control, with the aim of combating insecurity, smuggling and drug trafficking.[49] The Air Force put its fleet of Cessna A-37 Dragonfly into operation to conduct "reconnaissance, patrol, and surveillance" of the Northeast, while the Navy deployed its personnel and equipment in border lakes and rivers.[50]

On September 8, the purchase of two Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft from the Spanish Government was announced, for a price of 21 million euros and 1 million euros in spare parts.[51][52] The opposition criticized this purchase, describing it as an "inopportune expense".[53] The aircraft arrived in Uruguay on December 19, Defense Minister Javier García stated that "a process of modernization of essential equipment begins. With this incorporation there is more sovereignty, more human security and more civil protection."[54]

On December 22, 2020, the National Defense Council (CODENA) met for the first time.[55] Chaired by President Lacalle Pou, it is an advisory and consultative body that works on the drafting of a decree with the defense guidelines for the entire term.[56] The functions of the council are: to analyze threats that could harm the sovereignty and independence of the country, as well as seriously affect national interests; propose, in such cases, the measures or actions deemed necessary for its resolution; analyze and propose conflict hypotheses; suggest the adoption of strategies, approve the plans and coordinate the actions necessary for the defense, and make proposals on matters related to the defense that, because they affect various State agencies, require joint action.[56]

The COVID-19 pandemic emerged within the first days of Lacalle Pou's presidency. The first four cases, all imported, were reported on 13 March.[57] On 14 March, Lacalle requested the cancellation of public performances, and the closure of some public places. An awareness campaign was launched and citizens were advised to stay home. A two-week suspension of classes at public and private schools was also announced.[58] On 16 March, Lacalle issued an order to close all border crossings except Carrasco International Airport.[59] The border with Argentina was closed effective 17 March at midnight.[60] On that day, the Ministry of Economy and Finance published a list of prices of products such as alcohol gel, rectified alcohol, and surgical masks, in order to prevent price gouging.[61][62]

Given the advance of the coronavirus around the world, many governments ordered the closure of borders and the cessation of airport operations and cancellations of commercial flights. Due to the Uruguayans being stranded abroad, the then Foreign Minister Ernesto Talvi ordered the operation "All at home" for the return of Uruguayans who were outside the national territory, who do not reside abroad and who planned to return to the country but could not by these restrictions.[63] In the course of this operation, at least 3,965 Uruguayans stranded in 67 countries returned.[64] In addition, the repatriation of foreigners stranded in Uruguay to their countries of origin was carried out.

On 8 April, he announced the reopening of rural schools on 22 April. It was also reported that the reopening would be in educational centers in the interior of the country, excluding those of Montevideo and Canelones; and that attendance would be voluntary.[65] It was 35% of the total registered.[66] On April, 17 he informed that his administration decided to create a group, made up of experts that would define methods and studies to advise the government. The experts would be: the mathematician, electrical engineer, and academic from the Latin American Academy of Sciences, Fernando Paganini; Dr. Rafael Radi, the first Uruguayan scientist at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and president of the National Academy of Sciences of Uruguay; and Dr. Henry Cohen, President of the National Academy of Medicine and awarded as a Master by the World Gastroenterology Organisation in 2019.[67]

On 29 May, Lacalle himself, along with the Secretary of the Presidency, the Minister of National Defense, his private secretary and the ASSE President began a quarantine while awaiting the test, after having contact with the director of the Ministry of Social Development in Rivera, who was infected with COVID-19.[68] A day later, after being tested, it was confirmed that neither he nor the other government officials had contracted the virus.[69]

As of December 2, given the increase in cases (especially in Montevideo), a series of temporary measures were put into effect to slow growth. Among them the closure of sports activities in gyms and closed places, remote work requirements, closing of restaurants after midnight and the suspension of end-of-year parties.[70]

On December 16, due to the exponential growth of cases, the Executive Power announced a new set of measures: the regulation of Article 38 of the Constitution (the power of the executive power to dissolve agglomerations); the prohibition of entry from abroad between December 21 and January 10; the reduction of the capacity in interdepartmental transportation by half on those dates; the extension of the opening hours of shopping malls and street markets; the reopening of gyms (with a maximum capacity of 30%) and the suspension of public shows.[71]

On 2 April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Telehealth Law No. 19869 was approved. It established general guidelines to deploy and develop telehealth as a way to improve the efficiency and quality of medical services, as well as to expand their coverage by using information and communications technologies. The geographic distance between the patient and the health professional is a factor that encourages the usage of these technologies in order to exchange information to perform medical diagnosis, to indicate medical treatments and to prevent diseases, in addition to being useful to health professionals for further training. According to that Law, the development of telehealth must be performed under the following principles: universality, guaranteed access of the entire population to health, equity by allowing the medical attention in remote locations or those without resources, quality of services both towards the patient and the personnel training, efficiency by optimizing the use of resources, decentralization of the National Integrated Health System, complementarity but without replacing direct treatment of the patient, and confidentiality of the medical-patient relationship as well as protecting the privacy during the remote exchange of medical information.[72][73]

One article of the Telehealth Law was nonetheless criticized by Eduardo Cavalli, Minister of a Court of Appeals, who warned that the provision under article 7 regarding the patient's consent, it said that in the case of treatment of minors of age, the consent was to be given by their legal representative, however this was contradictory and against the rights of minors because, according to a pillar of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, they should be treated not according to their age but they have the right to express their views in all matters that affect minor's life in accordance with the maturity of the minor.[74] To address this legal problem, the Broad Front representative Cristina Lustemberg promoted a reform bill to modify article 7 so that in medical procedures through telehealth the principle of progressive autonomy of minors' and disabled persons' will is observed, in order to fix the regression of rights. This ended up being approved in August 2021.[75][76]