Uruguay’s Crime-Fighting Lessons for the World

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay—The campaign posters along Artigas Boulevard in the Uruguayan capital were striking, featuring Guido Manini Ríos, a former army chief, grimacing in his military uniform. So was his campaign slogan, “For Security,” and his promise to declare a public security national emergency. Crime was a top voter concern in this election, and Manini Ríos’s tough-on-crime Cabildo Abierto party saw opportunity amid high public anxiety.

As it turned out, Manini Ríos won less than 3 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election on Oct. 27, down from 11 percent five years ago. Cabildo Abierto will hold just two of 99 seats in the House of Representatives and none in the Senate, compared with the 11 seats in the House and three in the Senate it controls today. Meanwhile, only 40 percent of voters approved of a constitutional reform to reverse a ban on nighttime police raids on private homes. The nominee for Uruguay’s leftist Frente Amplio opposition coalition, Yamandú Orsi, opposed the referendum and aggressive policing, yet he finished first in the first round of the presidential contest.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay—The campaign posters along Artigas Boulevard in the Uruguayan capital were striking, featuring Guido Manini Ríos, a former army chief, grimacing in his military uniform. So was his campaign slogan, “For Security,” and his promise to declare a public security national emergency. Crime was a top voter concern in this election, and Manini Ríos’s tough-on-crime Cabildo Abierto party saw opportunity amid high public anxiety.

As it turned out, Manini Ríos won less than 3 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election on Oct. 27, down from 11 percent five years ago. Cabildo Abierto will hold just two of 99 seats in the House of Representatives and none in the Senate, compared with the 11 seats in the House and three in the Senate it controls today. Meanwhile, only 40 percent of voters approved of a constitutional reform to reverse a ban on nighttime police raids on private homes. The nominee for Uruguay’s leftist Frente Amplio opposition coalition, Yamandú Orsi, opposed the referendum and aggressive policing, yet he finished first in the first round of the presidential contest.

In an era when fear of violent crime increasingly shapes—and distorts—politics throughout Latin America, Uruguay’s election offers an important lesson. Traditional political parties, by adopting sensible crime-fighting strategies, need not cede space to political outsiders hawking heavy-handed approaches that might threaten civil liberties.

On paper, Uruguay seems vulnerable to a populist offering mano dura (“ironfisted”) security strategies. Once known as the “Switzerland of Latin America,” it saw its homicide rate double from 2011 to 2018, according to the most recent U.N. data. The murder rate fell between 2018 and 2021 and then began rising again, according to Uruguay’s National Observatory of Violence and Crime. In recent years, gruesome killings have highlighted the rise of organized crime, including the death of a 1-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting in October that targeted a gang leader. In late May, a suspected drug-related shooting left four dead, including an 11-year-old boy.

The port in Montevideo is an increasingly important node in global drug markets, where South American cocaine sets sail for Europe. Experts say gangsters from neighboring Brazil—including the First Capital Command—and from Colombia and even Mexico now operate in Uruguay. That has drawn comparisons to Costa Rica, another historically serene democracy ill-prepared for a recent spike in organized crime—a scourge that does not jibe with its pura vida (“pure life”) catchphrase.

Elsewhere in the region, these conditions would provide fertile ground for radical security policies. In 2022, for example, Honduras imposed a state of emergency to reduce extortion. In January, Ecuador declared a state of war against organized crime groups, following the escape from prison of two crime bosses and an explosion in violence.

El Salvador is the most notorious case. The biggest innovation from its ruling New Ideas party was the March 2022 suspension of constitutional rights that paved the way for a crackdown on gangs. The state of exception, still in force, has permitted mass arrests that are filling a new mega-prison and led to allegations of the deaths and torture of detainees.

Instead of criticism, El Salvador’s success in sharply reducing murders and extortion has attracted cheerleaders and copycats. Earlier this month, Costa Rica’s president, Rodrigo Chaves, awarded Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele with the Orden Juan Mora Fernández, its highest honor. In February, Bukele headlined the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States. At the conference, Bukele met with Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who said she hoped to “follow the model you’re carrying out.” In late September, Bukele huddled with Argentine President Javier Milei in the presidential palace in Buenos Aires.

For now, however, Argentina’s smaller neighbor, Uruguay, has opted for a more moderate response. In part, that reflects its pragmatic political culture. During the pandemic, President Luis Lacalle Pou promoted libertad responsable (“responsible freedom”) over the type of prolonged and strict lockdown imposed by Argentina. In last month’s election, voters actually rejected a referendum to return the retirement age to 60 from 65, amid warnings from economists that it would break the bank. In the presidential race, nearly 90 percent of voters cast a ballot for one of the three traditional political movements.

The country’s reluctance to militarize crime-fighting also reflects memories of the military government that ruled Uruguay from 1973 to 1985. It is hardly ancient history. Uruguay’s last president, José Mujica of the Frente Amplio, spent 14 years in prison during the dictatorship. Pedro Bordaberry, senior figure in the Colorado Party, a member of the ruling Republican Coalition, is the son of Juan María Bordaberry, the president who shut down Uruguay’s legislature in 1973 and invited the armed forces to rule. Today, 40 percent of Uruguayans have little or no confidence in the military, according to Latinobarómetro, a pollster. Support for the police is somewhat higher.

But the failure, so far, of “Bukelismo” to take hold in Uruguay is also a vote of confidence in the capacity of the country’s democratic institutions to step up to the challenge of organized crime. For a decade, Uruguay has been toughening its approach to money laundering, though there is room for improvement. In 2013, it became the first country to legalize marijuana for recreational use, a partially successful attempt to deprive criminals of a popular product. Lacalle Pou came into office promising that “playtime is over for criminals.” In 2020, the legislature passed a series of security reforms, including improvements to intelligence collection by law enforcement agencies, tougher sentencing, and reduced opportunities for prisoners to leave prison early. In 2022, a national referendum to repeal the reforms failed.

In this year’s presidential campaign, the candidates for the Colorado Party and its coalition partner, the ruling National Party, promised to accelerate security reforms. They floated plans for a task force modeled after Italian strategies to fight the Mafia, increased spending on police wages and training, and deploying more officers to violent neighborhoods. All the proposals emphasized addressing the underlying causes of crime, including poverty. None of them would compromise the rule of law that has made Uruguay stand out in the Americas.

Not all governments in the region are aping El Salvador. Crime is also the top concern in Chile, but its democracy remains strong as ever. Still, Uruguay’s success matters beyond the borders of this nation of 3.4 million people.

Latin Americans—not only in Mexico and Central America, but also in the Caribbean and South America—are increasingly demanding greater safety. The same is true across the West. In response, governments are obliged to provide new approaches. The question is whether those answers will help tear down democracy or build up the rule of law.