Martín Aguirre defends the system that feeds him

Martín Aguirre, director of El País, does not analyze Uruguayan politics. He manages it from a position that is not neutral. In his column from June 14, he attacks opposition sectors that demanded to go "to the bone" against President Orsi over the truck case and then pointed out the weakness of their own leaders.

He calls them "right-wing foquismo," accuses them of being relentless with "their own, traditional, and dialoguing leaderships," and warns that they harm democracy by rejecting negotiation.

It is hard not to notice that this stance coincides with the interest of a newspaper that depends, like all commercial press, on sponsors and official advertising from the current governments, including the Broad Front. It is not necessary to assume bad faith to see that this funding structure does not precisely encourage fundamental questioning.

That is why he criticizes the government only on superficialities—a discount on a truck, a sworn declaration—but rarely goes to the core: the oversized state apparatus, generalized clientelism, public education that produces massive failure generation after generation, regulations that stifle private activity, and public spending financed by high taxes and debt.

This is the line that Aguirre maintains. He prefers the dialoguing opposition, the one that negotiates, the one that does not break structures. This is, in his view, the cowardly right that he protects.

The one that had five years of government with Luis Lacalle Pou and sufficient parliamentary majorities to make fundamental reforms but chose the center. The center that means not touching the essentials, managing the inherited, and delivering continuity.

The clientelist apparatus was not dismantled, education was not truly reformed, and the weight of the state on the economy was not reduced. The system was managed. And Aguirre now comes out to shield that same logic in the current opposition.

It is no coincidence that he criticizes those who demand to go to the bone. Those citizens do not accept that the opposition limits itself to pointing out minor scandals while the model of privileges and state dependency remains intact.

Aguirre, on the other hand, accuses them of being radicals. And it is worth asking whether that reading is also shaped by the fact that his medium, like any commercial medium, needs the system not to break too much.

Companies that obtain contracts, benefits, and protections from the state advertise in El País. Governments of the Broad Front—and of other colors—place official advertising that supports part of the structure. These are well-known facts about the functioning of the Uruguayan commercial press, not a specific accusation against Aguirre.

Questioning the core of the problem would involve discussing the conditions that sustain that flow of resources. Perhaps that is why the column remains on the surface and defends "negotiation" and the "rational axis."

The reality is simple: as long as the director of El País attacks those who demand structural changes and protects those who prefer to dialogue within the same framework, he will be defending—consciously or unconsciously—the status quo from which his own medium also benefits.

The system of privileges, spending, and state control that he prefers not to touch deeply is also what sustains a good part of the advertising ecosystem that the Uruguayan press lives on. And as long as the cowardly right continues to choose to manage instead of dismantling, that system will remain in place.

Citizens who demand something else do not divide. They point out the obvious: five years of majorities are not wasted by mistake. They are wasted by ideological decision not to touch what sustains real power. Aguirre comes out to defend that decision from a position that, viewed honestly, is also not entirely selfless.