The polls published so far show a certain parity in the numbers of Yes and No.
The Yes, supported by a large part of the opposition, is strong in Montevideo and the larger cities, and the No, defended by the ruling party, is doing better in the interior.
On July 8, 2020, Congress approved the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC)of 475 articles, axis of the management of Lacalle Pou, a text that imposed key changes in areas as diverse as security, health, education, energy and labor rights.
Among other issues, the LUC limits the right to strike, declares picketing in public or private spaces illegal, establishes the figure of “criminal appearance” and increases the limit of cash transactions up to 100,000 dollars, which enables money laundering and allows tax evasion, according to its detractors.
In addition, it eliminates the obligation of initial education and reduces the functions of the State in the area, creates a mode of express eviction of rented housing and avoids the cooperative model of house construction, and enables the closure and/or privatization of strategic areas of the state oil company Ancap.
Since the restoration of democracy in Uruguay (1985), only thirteen bills were sent to the Legislature with this declaration of urgent consideration: nine were approved and four were rejected, but only three of those bills were in the “omnibus law” category.
Social, union, cooperative, feminist and political movements considered that the approval was given with an anti-democratic mechanism, and questioned 135 articles, for which they gathered, in the midst of the pandemic, nearly 750,000 signatures to force the referendum.
And as soon as the signatures were validated and the date of the consultation was announced, a campaign was launched that included some controversies and that grew in intensity over the weeks.
The first discussion was because the Electoral Court assigned the light blue color -strongly internalized as the “national” color in Uruguay- for the No ballots and pink for the Yes ballots.
The little that remains until the referendum will be used by the two sectors, in addition to strengthening their own vote, to lower the number of undecided voters.
The end of the campaign also comes with a curiosity: on Thursday, at the very close of the campaign period, Uruguay and Peru play for the qualifiers for the Qatar World Cup, and it is assumed that the Centenario stadium will reflect that final stretch. The Yes Command has already called: “To the stadium with pink to encourage the team.”
The sectors of the Yes, in addition, must fight the blank vote, historically around 2% or 3%, because it counts in favor of the No. That percentage, although small, in a tight ending can be decisive.
The National Commission for the Yes has been finishing its campaign “Forty reasons in 40 days” to explain in detail the damages that the LUC causes in various issues.
Although no one openly admits that a good part of the definition of the vote will be resolved according to sympathy with the government or with the opposition, everyone assumes that there is a huge percentage of “ballots already defined” on one side and the other.
The senator of National Party (PN) Gustavo Penades did put it into words: “There is a large percentage that is going to vote according to their party preference and another percentage that is disinterested, that does not care,” he admitted, in statements to Télam.
On the other hand, the head of the Uruguayan Federation of Housing Cooperatives for Mutual Aid (Fucvam), Enrique Cal, a member of the Comando del Si, noted that there are “activities every day in all the neighborhoods of the country, trying to convince those who They haven’t decided yet.”
“We are in the final stage. Surely the people are going to demonstrate their wisdom once again and that they know what they should do at key moments to change that outrage that is the LUC,” Cal told Télam.
On Tuesday, the promoters of Yes will use the official radio and TV channel for a 7-minute message, and a day later Lacalle Pou himself will be the face of No at a press conferencea decision that aroused some resentment not only because of the presence of the president -in Uruguay presidents cannot campaign-, but also because the previous day’s chain can respond in an obviously longer extension of time.
“There is an open end. The victory of the Yes is possible. It will be a whole week of mobilization, with the potential of militancy, which was differential in this process. Respecting the limits of the ban, there will be work until the very morning of the 27th, because there is an important demand not only for information but also for ballot papers,” José Olivera, a teacher unionist and member of the Comando del Sí, explained to Télam.
Source: Ambito
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