Tabaré Vázquez is dead: the leftist leader who launched the renovation in Uruguay

At the age of 80, former Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez has passed away. “Nothing is done alone, what has been achieved, we have done it together by participating, by working with people, by convincing, by becoming aware.” This is how he said goodbye to power, in February this year, in the middle of a popular festival in the neighborhood where he was born, in Montevideo, with a phrase that guided his government.

A crowd gathered in a square in the popular district of La Teja (west of the capital) a few meters from the Arbolito Club, founded by Vázquez himself in 1958, to show its support for the man. who left power after a second five-year term to give birth to the new center-right government of Luis Lacalle Pou.

It wasn’t just a farewell to power. Vázquez had already removed the presidential belt once, in March 2010, at the end of his first term and he left José “Pepe” Mujica with the challenge of moving forward with the historic turning point the country had taken.

Vázquez, from the broad forehead, was the first center-left president after the bloody military dictatorship that ruled from 1973 to 1985 and a series of center-right governments.

Uruguayan laws do not allow immediate re-election, so he had to wait five years to return to the government palace. In the 2014 elections, he defeated Lacalle Pou of the National Party (Blanco) and took over the leadership to advance the path he had opened a decade earlier and which Mujica was deepening.

This year, when he had to give up his chair to the center-right coalition that returned to power, he knew he would not return.

The farewell to La Teja was perhaps a general farewell to the Uruguayan people, aware that time was starting to win the race. His greatest adversary was no longer a political leader. It was lung cancer who was diagnosed in 2019 and which marked the final months of his presidency, even though he decided to stay in office during treatment and showed strength until the last day of his tenure.

The diagnosis of cancer came shortly after the death of his wife, María Auxiliadora Delgado, whom he married in 1964. They had three children.

Vázquez, himself a medical oncologist who directed a strong fight against smoking, is the one who announced publicly, in August of last year, that he had a “malignant nodule”. He was operated on and in September he began radiation therapy.

His doctors then announced that the president’s response was good, and Vázquez continued with his program. In December 2019, he was in Buenos Aires for the investiture of Alberto Fernández as president.

Moderate and low profile

Without the charisma of Pepe Mujica, Vázquez was one of the main leaders of the Uruguayan left, although he embodied the more moderate wing of the Frente Amplio. Before coming to the presidency, he was elected mayor of Montevideo in 1989 and was one of the people responsible for the growth of the left in the country.

Born in January 1940 into a modest family, he obtained a medical degree and specialized in radiation oncology after the death of his mother, sister and father from cancer. When he became president in 2005, he was already a medical reference in Uruguay and during his first term he continued to practice.

Vazquez made health one of the pillars of his presidency, with the creation of the Integrated National Health System, which guarantees access to comprehensive health services for all inhabitants.

He has received several awards for his vigorous fight against tobacco and has promoted restrictive laws on consumption, such as banning smoking in public spaces and advertising, and the incorporation of strong images on cigarette packs. to educate smokers.

This led to a millionaire lawsuit by the giant Philip Morris against Uruguay before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). In 2016, the court ruled in favor of the country and forced the tobacco company to pay the costs of the process.

Discreet and discreet, Vázquez was a singular president in Latin America: he measured his public appearances, spoke little and did not use social networks to communicate.

“When a president speaks, a country speaks and the president can only come to say what matters to the people”, he stressed one day, paraphrasing the former French president François Mitterrand, that he admired, as a note from the diary recalls The country, from Madrid.

During the farewell in the district of La Teja, last February, Vázquez dared to speak. He apologized in case “a tear” escaped him and reviewed some of the main points of the 15 years of Front Large government.

At the international level, he underlined the diversification of Uruguayan markets in those years (which rose from exporting to 60 countries in 2005 to 165 in 2019) and noted that Montevideo has championed non-interference by outside actors in country conflicts (in a veiled reference to the Venezuelan crisis ) and seek a peaceful solution to conflicts.

“The legacy that our broad front will leave to the Uruguayan people is a legacy that we must defend, support, be convinced of its importance and it is above all what we have done together”, he noted, before say goodbye, between his tears and his audience, reading the poem “No te surrende”, by Mario Benedetti.

Some of the most important figures of the last 15 years of government were present, such as the former vice-president and then the Minister of the Economy, Danilo Astori and, of course, Pepe Mujica.

Although at the end of last year Vázquez assured that he was “cured” of his cancer, his health was deteriorating. This Saturday, alarms went off when it was reported that he had relapsed and was serious. He didn’t want to be admitted. He preferred to die at home, with his family.