Jorge Batlle Ibáñez

Jorge Luis Batlle Ibáñez ( born October 26, 1927 in Montevideo) is a Uruguayan lawyer, journalist and politician. He is a member of the Colorado Party, and was from 1 March 2000 to 1 March 2005 President of his country.

Jorge Batlle Ibáñez put on 1 March 2000 from the oath of office, after he was elected president. The election to the presidency was the conclusion of a long career in public service, in which he was several times member of parliament, the Senate and the Congress for Batlle. The political career of Jorge Batlle Ibáñez began in 1945 and is closely linked to the Partido Colorado. Luis Batlle Berres His father was twice president. Other members of the family - which originally came from Catalonia - were closely linked to the Partido Colorado.

Until 1958, when he was first elected as congressman, Batlle, who studied at the Universidad de la República law and social sciences, and in 1956 received his diploma, as a journalist for the radio station and Ariel for the newspaper Acción worked. At that time he was already a board member of his party. In the period of the military dictatorship from 1973 to 1985, he held no public office and was arrested several times. In 1985, he stood before the first democratically elected Congress after the military dictatorship. In September 1986 he was the chairman of the Uruguayan delegation to the UN. November 1994 he was elected Senator for the period from 15 February 1995 to 15 February 2000. This office he resigned on 1 June 1999, when he was elected by his party to the candidate for the presidency.

In October 1999, a coalition of left-wing groups, Encuentro Progresista ( Frente Amplio ) was the strongest party in the parliamentary elections, but its presidential candidate Tabaré Vázquez could not in run-off elections for the office of State and Government against the representatives of the Colorado Party, Jorge Luis Batlle Ibáñez, enforce, who was sworn in March 2000. Jorge Batlle Ibáñez was the fourth president, who belonged to the Batlle family - one of his predecessors was his own father - a name which is closely connected with the political history of the country. His reign was marked by recession and uncertainty. First, by the devaluation of the Brazilian real in 1999 and then by the outbreak of foot-and -mouth disease, which hit one of the main economic sectors of Uruguay fragile and eventually by the political and economic fall of Argentina in 2001. In 2002, it came in the wake of the crisis in Argentina to a banking crisis in Uruguay, which resulted in several banks had to be restructured and some were also closed.