Unity and Reform

The designation Unity and Reform was taken by the old List 15 of the Batllist faction of the Uruguayan Colorado Party, founded by President Luis Batlle Berres between 1952 and 1954. When Batlle Berres died in 1964 his son, Jorge Batlle, assumed the directorship of the faction. But Batlle Berre's death precipitated a crisis over who would lead List 15. During the elections of 1966, List 15 began to designate itself as "Unity and Reform," alluding both to the necessity of overcoming political factionalism and to Batlle's project of reinstating the presidency and doing away with the Colegiado. The Colorado Party won the election, and the referendum reinstating the presidency was approved. Paradoxically, the candidate to triumph within the Colorado Party was not Batlle, but rather General Oscar Gestido. The descendants of List 15 later abandoned the designation Unity and Reform and adopted the term Radical Batllismo.

See alsoBatllismo .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angel Cocchi, Nuestros partidos (1984).

Martin Weinstein, Uruguay: Democracy at the Crossroads (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Costa Bonino, Luis. La crisis del sistema político uruguayo: Partidos políticos y democracia hasta 1973. Montevideo: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria, 1995.

Crespo Martínez, Ismael. Tres décadas de política uruguaya: Crisis, restauración y transformación del sistema de partidos. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas: Siglo Veintinuo de España, 2002.

Mallo, Susana, Rafael Paternain and Miguel Angel Serna. Modernidad y poder en el Río de la Plata: Colorados y Radicales. Montevideo: Editorial Trazas, 1995.

Pelúas, Daniel. Coparticipación y coalición: 164 años de acuerdo entre Blancos y Colorados. Montevideo: Arca: Humus, 2000.

                                     JosÉ de Torres Wilson