Yamandú Orsi assumed the presidency of Uruguay this Saturday, following his victory in the November 2024 elections, international media reported.
In a ceremony held at the Legislative Palace, the president, who will lead the nation until 2030, took the oath of office.
Orsi is the ninth president of Uruguay since 1985, when a 13-year civil-military dictatorship ended, and the third president of the leftist Frente Amplio that Uruguay will have, after the late Tabaré Vázquez governed for two periods (2005-2010 and 2015-2020) and José 'Pepe' Mujica did so for another (2010-2015).
During his inaugural speech, he highlighted the 40 years that the country has been a democratic state since 1985.
"On March 1, 1985, the country regained its institutionality after 13 years of civil-military dictatorship, the most painful period in our contemporary history," he said.
On the same subject, he also dedicated part of his speech to the search for missing detainees in Uruguay. “Democracy will be in better health the day that all Uruguayan families know where their missing relatives are,” he said.
He also stressed the importance of concepts such as “positive accumulation” and the pursuit of “public happiness.”
“Democracy is not a point of arrival, but a path that is built day by day, a collective process that is measured in years, yes, but it is also measured in its capacity to guarantee better rights, to generate greater equality, to foster better coexistence,” Orsi emphasized.
To which he later added: “the only ambition of this government is closely linked to the search for public happiness.”
In his speech he also emphasized economic recovery, committed to the fight against organized crime and announced the creation of a Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation in the Presidency.
Orsi, 57, succeeds Luis Lacalle Pou to lead until 2030 a country of 3,4 million inhabitants, one of the most stable and prosperous in America, which on March 1 celebrates four decades of uninterrupted democracy.
The ceremony was attended by the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; Chile, Gabriel Boric, and Panama, José Raul Mulino. Also present were the president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the king of Spain, Felipe VI.
And what are radical right-wing personnel doing there? I don't understand.