The Movement of Popular Participation ( es, Movimiento de Participación Popular) is a

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

. It is a member organisation of the left-wing Broad Front coalition.

Background

From 1985 onwards, after the end of the

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

and the amnesty that freed those

Tupamaros The Tupamaros – National Liberation Movement ( es, Movimiento de Liberación Nacional – Tupamaros, MLN-T), widely known as Tupamaros, was a Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. The MLN-T is inextricab ...

imprisoned during the regime, there was debate among different factions within the Tupamaros about whether or not to participate in the legal political system. In the end, those who favored the democratic ways prevailed.

Foundation

In 1989, the Tupamaros were admitted within the ranks of the Broad Front and, together with other groups of the radical left such as the

People's Victory Party The Partido por la Victoria del Pueblo, also known as the Party for the Victory of the People, or People's Victory Party (PVP), is a political organization in Uruguay. Its military wing is known as OPR-33. The leftist group began under an anarc ...

(PVP), the

Oriental Revolutionary Movement Oriental Revolutionary Movement (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Movimiento Revolucionario Oriental'', MRO) is a far-left politics, far-left Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist communist party in Uruguay. From 1967 to 1985, it had an armed wing ...

(MRO) and the Socialist Workers' Party, they created the ''Movement of Popular Participation'' (MPP). However, the Tupamaros within the MPP declined to participate in the

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

. As a result of the legislative elections of 1989, the MPP won two seats in the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

: Helios Sarthou (a Union lawyer) and Hugo Cores (PVP). It has since become the largest faction within the Broad Front, the leftist coalition which won the elections in 2004 and took power in March 2005. Its main leader is

José Mujica José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano (; born 20 May 1935) is a Uruguayan politician, former revolutionary and farmer who served as the 40th president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. A former guerrilla with the Tupamaros, he was tortured and impr ...

. In 1992, the MRO decided to leave the MPP (and soon afterwards, the Broad Front) due to political differences with the direction the MPP was taking, stating that "it was growing apart from the ideas of

Raúl Sendic Raúl Sendic Antonaccio (16 March 1926 – 28 April 1989) was a Uruguayan Marxist lawyer, trade unionist and founder of the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T). Early life and education Born in a rural area, near the village of Juan ...

regarding the foreign debt, the nationalization of banks and external trade". In the elections of 1994 former guerrilla members participated in Uruguayan elections for the first time as candidates for Parliament. The MPP gained in votes, thus obtaining two seats in the Chamber of Deputies (

and

Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro (March 14, 1942 – August 5, 2016) was an Uruguayan politician, journalist, and writer. He was popularly known as "El Ñato". A former member of the National Liberation Movement (Tupamaros) (MLN-T), he was in priso ...

) and one in the Senate (Sarthou). Towards 1999, Mujica had become a major political phenomenon, due in part to his blunt style and his clarity. In the elections of that year, Mujica ran for the Senate and the turnout for the MPP was increased, giving the party two seats in the upper chamber. The growth in popularity continued so that in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

the MPP got six seats in the Senate, and contributed to the victory of presidential candidate

Tabaré Vázquez Tabaré Ramón Vázquez Rosas (; ''Vázquez Rosas'' locally ; 17 January 19406 December 2020) was a Uruguayan politician who served as the 41st president of Uruguay from 2015 to 2020. He previously served from 2005 to 2010 as the 39th presiden ...

who then became the first left-wing president of the country. During the Vázquez administration, several members of the MPP held key positions. Mujica was Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, and

Eduardo Bonomi Edison Eduardo Bonomi Varela (14 October 1948 – 20 February 2022) was a Uruguayan guerrilla member and politician of the Movement of Popular Participation – Broad Front. He served as Minister of Labour and Social Welfare from 2005 to 2009, ...

was Minister of Labor. Since 2007 new trends within the MPP have led to the creation of the CAP-L, led by Huidobro. In the primary elections of 2009, the MPP reasserted its supremacy as the most important faction in the Broad Front. Mujica quit the MPP after the primary elections so that he would not be tied to any particular group within the Broad Front. He subsequently won the elections in the same year in November.

Electoral history

Presidential elections

References

External links