Uruguay’s 1st socilist president Tabare Vazquez dies at 80
Tabare Vazquez, two-time president of Uruguay and a champion in the fight against smoking, died on Sunday at the age of 80 after battling lung cancer.
“With deep pain we communicate the death of our beloved father,” his sons Alvaro, Javier and Ignacio Vazquez said in a statement.
On Twitter, Alvaro Vazquez, who is also a cancer specialist, said that while he was resting at home, accompanied by some family and friends, “Tabare died because of his illness.”
Accroding to AFP, thousands of people took the streets in Montevideo to bid farewell to the nation’s first leftist leader, who was also a cancer doctor.
The funeral procession left from the city center and arrived at the cemetery in the neighborhood where Tabare Vazquez was born. His children carried his coffin, draped with the national flag, and then his family gathered for a religious tribute.
Tabare Vazquez became the first person from the left-wing Broad Front coalition to win the mayoralty of Montevideo in 1989. He secured the presidency in 2005, breaking the traditional hegemony of the Colorado and National parties in the small South American nation.
He held the presidential office till 2010 and again from 2015 till March this year. He later handed over the president post to Luis Lacalle Pou of the National Party, who had beaten Broad Front candidate Daniel Martinez in an election run-off.
Lacalle Pou praised his predecessor, saying “he served this nation and achieved important advances. He was the president of the Uruguayans.”
The Uruguayan government announced three-day national mourning, he added.Uruguay became the first Latin American country to ban smoking in public spaces, and only the fifth worldwide in 2006. Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com
