Uruguay: Proposal for Leadership

For the last twelve years, Uruguay has been governed by a succession of nine-man National Councils, in which four members of the majority party take annual turns as the country's nominal President. When the presidency came around to Washington Beltrán.* 51, a Blanco Party leader and onetime editor of Montevideo's daily El Pais, he went on TV with a drastic proposal: abolish the Swiss-style council and return posthaste to a single, strong President. Said Beltrán: "If the government is required to govern, it must be provided with the means to do so."

Indeed it must. As a staunch little island of welfare-statism since the late 1920s, Uruguay now has so many built-in giveaways (among them: full-pay retirement as early as age 55) that the Nebraska-size wool-and-beef-producing country is on the brink of bankruptcy. The Council, which operates by majority vote, spends most of its time bickering. When it does make a decision, the effect is severely limited by autonomous state agencies that exert an enormous influence on the nation's economy. The state-owned power company can raise gas and electricity prices whenever it likes, as can the state railroad, airline, post office, and telephone service. In short, anything the Council might suggest to control Uruguay's galloping inflation (up 38% last year) can be undone by someone else.

Beltrán's proposal got a cool reception from Uruguayan politicians, who still believe that nine heads are better than one. Nevertheless, he intends to present his proposal as a referendum to Uruguay's 2,556,000 people in next year's election.