Uruguay Introduces Government by Committee

Abstract

Of the ten countries in South America, nine now have presidents who are dictators or who at some time during their careers have exercised dictatorial power. The tenth, Uruguay, with its tradition of working democracy, has resisted this trend towards personalist government. Recently it took an important step in the diffusion of executive power when through orderly constitutional reform the national presidency was replaced by a nine-man executive committee. The nation's stability has been attested to by those most cautious of judges, the international investors, who, fearful of trouble in Europe after the outbreak of war in Korea, moved their capital holdings from Berne to Montevideo. The country's democracy has been even more welcomed by those who have found it an oasis of freedom from Perón's police state across the river. Uruguay has successfully met Latin America's ever basic problem, political stability under democratic procedure.Casual visitors who call Uruguay the Switzerland or Denmark of South America probably have in mind its small size; its location between two large states, Brazil and Argentina; its population of merely two and a half million; its pastoral economy, political liberty, social legislation, and government economic activities; and especially its penchant for a Swiss-style pluripersonal executive. Yet at best this comparison is severely out of context.