Luis Lacalle Pou

Luis Alberto Aparicio Alejandro Lacalle Pou, born 11 August 1973 in Montevideo, is a Uruguayan lawyer and politician who held the office of the 42nd president of Uruguay from 2020 to 2025. He is the son of former president Luis Alberto Lacalle and former first lady and senator Julia Pou, and a great-grandson of political figure Luis Alberto de Herrera. He also has a distant familial connection to Joaquín Suárez. Raised in the Pocitos neighborhood, he moved to the presidential residence in Prado when his father took office in 1990. At age 14, a medical visit in the United States identified a growth hormone issue, which he treated with injections, reaching a height of 1.70 meters. He attended The British Schools of Montevideo, where a guard was posted during his father’s presidency, and he preferred driving himself in an old family car over official transport. He studied law at the Catholic University of Uruguay, graduating in 1998. In his youth, he surfed and played football for Montevideo Cricket Club.

Lacalle Pou’s political career began with his election to the Chamber of Representatives for Canelones in the 1999 general election, serving from 2000 to 2015. He was re-elected in 2004 under the Herrerist faction of the National Party, a movement founded by his great-grandfather, and again in 2009. During the 2011–2012 session of the 47th Legislature, he chaired the lower house. He ran for Intendant of Canelones in the 2010 municipal election but lost with 22.82% of the vote to Broad Front candidate Marcos Carámbula. He served as a senator from 2015 to 2019. He defines himself as religious and emphasized discouraging abortion, resorting to it only when necessary.

He first ran for president in 2014, launching his bid on 30 March and winning his party’s nomination on 1 June, but lost in the second round on 30 November. In the 2019 presidential primaries, he defeated Enrique Antía, Carlos Iafigliola, Jorge Larrañaga, and Juan Sartori with 53% of the vote, naming Beatriz Argimón as his vice presidential candidate that same night. In the first round of the general election on 27 October 2019, he placed second with 28.62% of the vote. In the runoff on 24 November, he defeated Broad Front nominee and former Montevideo mayor Daniel Martínez with 50.79% of the vote. At age 46, he ended 15 years of leftist rule and became the youngest president since the end of the dictatorship in 1985.

As president, Lacalle Pou oversaw reforms to retirement, pension, and education systems. He led Uruguay’s COVID-19 pandemic response and vaccination rollout, earning praise and high approval ratings. In April 2020, his administration introduced an “Urgent Consideration Law,” enacted on 8 July 2020, which restructured various areas. An opposition campaign led to a March 2022 referendum on repealing 135 articles of the law, but voters chose to keep them in force. During his term, a drought in mid-2023 reduced water availability in the Montevideo metropolitan area, sparking protests. Controversies arose within his administration, including the dismissal and arrest of chief custodian Alejandro Astesiano for forging identity documents and passports for Russian citizens. In July 2024, Lacalle Pou announced his candidacy for the Senate in the 2024 general election. He could not seek a second consecutive presidential term due to a constitutional ban.