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Uruguay

Country in South America, on the Atlantic coast, bounded north by Brazil and west by Argentina.

Government

The 1967 constitution provides for a president who is head of state and head of government, elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term, and a two-chamber legislature, comprising a senate (Camara de Senadores) and a federal chamber of deputies (Camera de Representantes). The president is assisted by a vice-president and presides over a council of ministers.

The senate has up to 30 members and the chamber of deputies 99, all elected for a five-year term by universal suffrage through a system of proportional representation. The voting system ensures that there are at least two deputies representing each of the republic's 19 departments. There is a Supreme Court.

History The area was settled by both Spain in 1624 and Portugal in 1680, but Spain secured the whole area in the 18th century. In 1814 Spanish rule was overthrown in a revolt led by José Gervasio Artigas, dictator until driven out by Brazil in 1820. Disputed between Argentina and Brazil 1825-28, Uruguay declared its independence in 1825, although it was not recognized by its neighbours until 1853.

The names of Uruguay's two main political parties, the liberal Colorado (the Reds) and the conservative Blanco (the Whites), are derived from the colours of the flags carried in the civil war in 1836. The assumption of power by Gen Vinancia Flores in 1865 led to a period of uninterrupted rule by the Colorado party until the next century, though civil war and revolutionary upheavals were frequent. After the civil war of 1896, the Colorados struck a deal with the Blancos that gave the latter control of six of the country's departments. This political stability encouraged large-scale foreign investment in livestock farming and infrastructural development.

José Battle y Ordónez, president 1903-07 and 1911-15, brought peace and prosperity and Uruguay gained a reputation as a modern, democratic nation, Latin America's first welfare state.

From 1951 to 1966 there was a collective leadership called ‘collegiate government’. Under the new 1967 constitution the Blanco candidate, Jorge Pacheco Areco, was elected. His presidency was marked by economic difficulties, as a result of falling world demand for agricultural products, leading to high inflation, labour unrest, and growing urban guerrilla activity by the Tupamaros, and he declared a state of emergency in 1968.

Repressive regime

In 1972 Pacheco was succeeded by the Colorado candidate, Juan Maria Bordaberry Arocena, who brought in the army to crush the Tupamaros, and all other left-wing groups were banned. Bordaberry headed a repressive regime, with democratic institutions dissolved and large numbers of political opponents imprisoned. He was deposed in 1976 by the army, who appointed Dr Aparicio Méndez Manfredini as president, under whom the repression continued.

In 1981, with a deteriorating economy, the army sought to return to constitutional government, and appointed the retired general, Gregorio Alvarez Armellino, as interim president. But the army and main political parties could not agree on a new constitution, and civil unrest, with strikes and demonstrations, grew, until in 1984 the main political leaders agreed a ‘Programme of National Accord’, restoring the 1967 constitution, with some modifications. In the 1985 elections the Colorado Party won a narrow majority, and its leader, Dr Julio Maria Sanguinetti, became president, heading a government of national accord comprising all the main parties - Colorado, Blanco, and the left-wing Broad Front - and the army stood down. The Blanco candidate, Luis Lacalle Herrera, narrowly won the 1989 elections to become president in 1990, but his ‘market-orientated’ policies provoked widespread strikes. Sanguinetti returned for a second term in 1995 and was replaced in 2000 by his Colorado party colleague, Jorge Batlle Ibáñez. In October 2004, Tabaré Vázquez Rosas, of the Broad Front Progressive Encounter-New Majority, was narrowly elected to become, in 2005, the country's first left-wing president.

Concepción del Uruguay Concordia (city)

Entre Ríos Fray Bentos

Montevideo Paysandú (city)

Plata, Río de la Salto (town)

San José (town in Uruguay) Soriano