URUGUAY: Two-Headed Leadership

The leaders of other Latin American nations could well take a look at tiny Uruguay last week and draw a lesson on how to make the best of a difficult coalition. After years of government mismanagement, Uruguay’s peso has been freed and is now stable, the cost of living is slowing down, and the economy is so healthy that the government could pass up a U.S. loan offer of $15 million. To make them more impressive, the accomplishments are the work of what would seem to be two political cats in a sack: fiery Benito Nardone, 53, a former traveling salesman who leads Uruguay’s noisily reform-minded ruralistas, and wily Eduardo Victor Haedo, 59, a witty ex-teacher who bosses the rightist National (Blanco) Party. Two years ago when they joined forces to defeat the Colorado Party that had ruled Uruguay for 93 years, the losers scoffed: “They will fight, and we will laugh.”

Helping Themselves. Today no Colorado laughs. In a rare exercise of statesmanship, Nardone and Haedo got together on a two-headed leadership that runs Uruguay with tough-minded efficiency. They serve on the nine-man Council of Government, whose rotating chairman is Uruguay’s equivalent to President. Nardone, the current chairman, and Haedo, who takes over March 1, together pushed through a successful program to save the country from spiraling inflation. To avoid the feast-or-famine trade cycles associated with wool, traditionally Uruguay’s No. 1 export, Nardone and Haedo began by modernizing cattle ranching and saw 1960 meat exports more than double the 1959 total. Next they aimed at crippling strikes, set up a government arbitration board that increased some obviously low wages but allowed no boondoggles. Another campaign.: a balanced budget. Increases are scheduled for the army, police, health and education, but by dumping Uruguay’s oldtime system of wasteful patronage and enacting its first national income tax, Nardone and Haedo see annual expenditures of $129 million offset by receipts of $131 million.

Up the Hill. Some of the aims alarm the Colorados, who have only three men on the governing council. They do not like the Nardone-Haedo plan for modernizing Uruguay’s army, fear that it may become a tool to keep the two leaders in power indefinitely. But about the worst the Colorados have done is to try to clip Haedo’s wings in a farcical attempt at impeachment—because he failed to get congressional permission before leaving the country to attend the U.N. General Assembly in Manhattan. The chances are that the impeachment trial will get pigeonholed by the Senate. The nation is beginning to feel the effect of a stabilized economy, and only a foolish politician would annoy the voters.

An upcoming bumper wool clip of 120,000 tons will mean a new boost in living standards. More than $70 million in private capital invested abroad has returned home to provide new capital and new jobs. Damage from last April’s floods is repaired; electric power, in fact, had increased 35% by last July. Even Montevideo’s normally belligerent students are quieting down as the Nardone-Haedo leadership slowly pushes Uruguay uphill.