Uruguayans Pay Tribute to Late President Tabare Vazquez

On Monday, Uruguayans held several emotional events to recall the first anniversary of the death of the Broad Front leader and left-wing President of Tabare Vazquez.

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"We are not doing a tribute to Tabare but honoring life. He was not very fond of tributes," former Vice President Rodolfo Nin Noboa said at an ceremony at the La Teja cemetery in Montevideo.

“Vazquez worked for the Uruguayan people… he was the best president Uruguay has had in the last hundred years. He made the most important political, economic, and social transformations in the country's history," Nin Noboa pointed out.

"Our country needs a Broad Front administration that thinks of the poor... He had that imprint because he always thought of the weakest and most humble people. Tabare, the country misses you a lot!"

From 1990 to 1995, the physician Tavare Vasquez served as mayor of Montevideo. Years later, in the 2004 elections, he won 50.45 percent of the votes and became the country's first president from a left-wing party. This triumph implied the breakdown of a two-party system that had been controlled by the National Party and the Colorado Party since the 1830s.

During his two presidential terms (2005-2010 and 2015-2020), Vasquez maintained cordial diplomatic relations with the United States. However, he refused to sign the Free Trade Area of ​​the Americas (FTAA) proposed by the U.S. President George W. Bush.

As part of the tributes to the late Broad Front leader, the Associate Directors of Uruguayan Popular Carnival Shows (DAECPU) announced that the 2022 carnival will be named after Tabare Vasquez. In this South American country, these festivities are massive and take place for three months.