Word: gestido
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week Uruguay's economic troubles reached such a sad state that President Oscar Gestido declared his fourth devaluation of the peso since taking office last March. This time he used strong medicine: he cut the exchange rate to 102%, for the first time setting it at a realistic level in hopes of expanding trade and restoring confidence in the peso. Sure enough, Uruguayans began flipping their mattresses over and taking their hoarded supply of dollars to the banks to switch them for pesos...
...realized, was to toss it out and get a new form of government. Last week they did that, and did it peacefully. In a quiet, orderly referendum, the country's 1,200,000 voters decided to return to a single, one-man .presidency. The new President is Oscar Gestido, 65, a scrupulously honest, mild-mannered ex-Air Force general whose liberal Colorado Party swept into power for the first time in eight years...
...whip the country into shape, Gestido will have the power to designate certain legislation as "emergency" and therefore automatic law unless Congress acts within a given period. If Congress rejects the new legislation, Gestido can simply dissolve it and rule by decree until new congressional elections are held. As a rein on him, major presidential decisions must be ratified by his eleven-man Council of Ministers. Whatever those decisions may be, they will entail plenty of belt tightening. "I will simply say that we are poor," said Gestido, "and that the poor should live as such. If in some future...