Rafael Addiego Bruno

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28° Constitutional President of Uruguay
Rafael Addiego

In office February 12, 1985 – March 1, 1985
Preceded by	Gregorio Álvarez
Succeeded by	Julio María Sanguinetti

Born	February 23, 1923 Salto, Uruguay
Profession	jurist

Rafael Addiego (b. February 23, 1923) is a Uruguayan jurist and political figure.

He was President of Uruguay February - March 1985 as an interim measure, following the resignation, and accession to office, respectively, of Presidents Gregorio Álvarez and Julio María Sanguinetti.

1 Background
2 President of Uruguay (interim)
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Background

Addiego was President of the Supreme Court when the sitting President, General Gregorio Álvarez, who did not look favourably on the candidacy of the Colorado Party's Sanguinetti and his subsequent election to the Presidency in November 1984, opted under pressure to resign in February, 1985.

By 1985, there had been increasing divisions among members of the National Security Council, which had originally sponsored Álvarez's appointment to the Presidency in 1981. In addition, Sanguinetti and his Colorado Party supporters felt they had strong reasons to seek to discredit Álvarez in favour of their candidate. For both the (relatively) moderate members of the National Security Council and for Sanguinetti and his supporters, a mutually acceptable transitional figure was sought.

[edit] President of Uruguay (interim)

Thus it was Addiego who briefly came to serve out the remainder of Álvarez's expected term of office until President-elect Sanguinetti was sworn in at the beginning of March 1985.

Defenders of the political arrangement whereby Addiego became President were able to point out that it enabled Sanguinetti to receive the transfer of office from a civilian (Álvarez being a General). To international observers, the public relations aspect of what was billed as Uruguay's transition to democracy was enhanced by the increased psychological distance between Sanguinetti and Álvarez. Sceptics were able to recall that since Juan María Bordaberry's 1973 coup, which had led to the increased involvement of the Uruguayan military in the government, various of the so-called 'Military Government' Presidents - Bordaberry, Demicheli and Méndez, were in fact civilians, and it had been the military-backed National Security Council in any case which had cooperated with the November 1984 Presidential elections. Furthermore, it is an undoubted fact that many members of Sanguinetti's Colorado party supported rule by decree, both in the preceding 12 years and, indeed, during the extra-parliamentary régime of Gabriel Terra during the 1930s.

From whatever perspective, however, the reasons which led to Addiego's brief period of Presidential office exemplify something of the nature and even ambiguities underlying the transition to Sanguinetti's presidency.

The episode which led to Addiego's taking up of the interim office of the Uruguayan Presidency arguably has historical parallels with the reluctance of US President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower to observe pre-inaugural protocols with the outgoing Administration of President Harry S. Truman in 1953, at a time of heightened political and discoursive tension.