Open Cabildo (Uruguay)


Cabildo Abierto is a Uruguayan political party founded in 2019. It participated for the first time in an election the same year of its foundation, it obtained 11.04% of the votes, three senators and eleven representatives. It is led by Guido Manini Ríos, former Commander in Chief of the Army.
According to the Cifra Consultant in October 2019, 24% of its voters were previously from the Broad Front, 14% from the Colorado Party and 10% from the National Party. Gonzalo Ferreira Sienra, one of the children of Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, is a member of Open Abierto.

History

This political group applied to the Electoral Court in early 2019 to request its registration as a party, to compete in the presidential primaries of that year. The request was approved on March 10, after the acceptance of some 3,000 signatures submitted by citizens. The current name refers to the old town hall meetings of the colonial era, which in modern usage has been transferred to holding open meetings in order to make decisions.
It is chaired by lawyer and notary Guillermo Domenech, a former member of the National Party who served as a Notary of the President's Office from 1990 to 2019. Manini Ríos's wife, Irene Moreira, who also belonged to the National Party, resigned from it and joined Open Cabildo.

Ideology

With strong emphasis on public security, family values and social conservatism, and opposing gender theory, they claim Artiguism as their main source of inspiration. Their presidential candidate was Guido Manini Ríos, a harsh critic of President Tabaré Vázquez.
Some international news outlets such as El País from Madrid analyse this phenomenon as a sign of the rise of the populist right in the mold of Donald Trump and Brexit in a traditionally centrist country. There are several military officers, both active and retired, and also former members of the defunct far-right movement Juventud Uruguaya de Pie.

2019 election

In the June 2019 presidential primaries, Cabildo Abierto had had more than 40,000 votes across the country, making it the fourth Uruguayan political force. The departments with the most votes for this party were Rivera, Cerro Largo and Artigas.
In mid-August, Manini Ríos confirmed the party's president, Guillermo Domenech, as his running mate for the general election.
In the general election,Open Cabildo obtained 268,736 votes and won three seats in the Senate and 11 in the Chamber of Representatives. In the face of the second round, Open Cabildo was part of the Coalición Multicolor, which supported Luis Lacalle Pou and which was also composed of the National Party, Colorado Party, Independent Party and the Party of the People.