Ambit He consulted two political scientists and an economist about what they believe will be the central points of the President of the Republic’s speech.
The doctor in Political Science, teacher and researcher at the Udelar, Antonio Cardarelloconsidered that Lacalle Pou “is going to focus on defending the management of his government, on vindicating what he considers to be the achievements of this administration and comparing it with what the administrations of the Wide Front”. “A speech that clearly aims to influence the decision that Uruguayans are going to make in October and November of this year,” he added.
Cardarello indicated that “there are surely references to what the gathering of signatures for the constitutional reform plebiscite against social security reform. On other issues, in economy, in security, he will also try to demonstrate achievements, but without a doubt they will be more controversial,” he considered.
“We have to see if he will make reference to the issues that were most controversial for his government, such as those of Astesiano or Marset, which ended with the resignation of senior officials, and perhaps he will try to make the argument that his pulse did not tremble. to make decisions and remove people from their positions,” he mentioned.
For his part, the political scientist Ernesto Nietoalso a teacher at Udelar and director of the consulting firm Agorahighlighted that “it is not the typical accountability because Uruguay It does not provide in its regulatory framework for presidents to be accountable to the Parliament, but from a symbolic point of view this government has installed that presidential speech as a kind of surrender. However, in reality it has been much more than that.”
For Nieto, in President Luis Lacalle Pou’s speech on Saturday there will be two clear dimensions: what he states in his speech and how public opinion receives it.
“The first dimension, in addition to the balance of what the government did last year, has two more components. It is an election year, so Lacalle Pou will surely reinforce his efforts to communicate the government’s achievements. But the other element is that, at the same time, it is his last speech in this period as President of the Republic. “With which it is the last important institutional appearance that he has before the Uruguayan people,” Nieto contextualized.
For the analyst, neither the President of the Republic nor the national government is in the best moment before public opinion. “The different measurements we have show that the evaluation is falling and that is why importance is also given to this fact to see if Lacalle Pou, based on that speech, manages to reposition itself again. But of course, this year is a year that has the particularity that no matter how much he repositions himself, that trajectory will not necessarily accompany his party or the coalition because it is an electoral year.
Positive balance for the government economically
For the economist Hernan Bonillapresident of Center for Development Studies (CED)the balance that can be presented Luis Lacalle Pou before the General Assembly is essentially positive in the economic area.
“We have information that was not good, which was the economy growingwhich both in the official estimate and in the one we have is half a point of the product, that is practically the same as saying that the economy was stagnant last year, but the interesting thing is that beyond that data, the other data, and I would say that those that are most relevant to the population are positive,” he stated to Ambit.
“The creation data of employment, we have 70,000 more people working than in 2019, it is a very good figure, especially if you take into account that the previous five-year period there was a very large destruction of jobs. Also the drop in inflation“Having gone down a notch from the 8-odd percent that we had on average in the previous years to the 5.1 at the end of last year, is good data,” he exemplified.
Bonilla added that “the compliance part of the tax rulewhich was recently announced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF)”. “That the new fiscal institution that has a ceiling on spending, debt and a structural analysis of the public spending with objectives, having been met for the fourth consecutive year gives credibility to the fiscal policy,” he highlighted.
“Today we have the risk country lowest of Latin Americawe are paying less interest rates than before, we have improved our rating and that is very positive because it allows us to borrow at lower rates, but it also helps macroeconomic stability that today has the Uruguay“, argument.
Source: Ambito
