With Montevideo under siege, Atanasio Aguirre steps…

With Montevideo under siege, Atanasio Aguirre steps down from the Presidency in favor of Senator Tomás Villalba, who soon makes peace with the Colorado Party besiegers, allied with Brazil.

With Argentinian and Brazilian help, Venancio Flores takes Montevideo by February 1865.

The Uruguayan War officially ends on February 20, 1865.

This transition of power marks the coming to Presidential office of heads of state of the Colorado Party, which will remain in power for nearly a century.

Flores establishes a provisional government, a term used to disguise his personal dictatorship.

Although the Uruguayan Colorado Party has the reputation of being progressive and democratic, Flores and other Colorado Party leaders of the nineteenth century, and many prominent twentieth century Colorado leaders, will collectively demonstrate by their actions that they are comfortable with rule by decree, with power not unusually concentrated in very few people.

The tendency of some observers to describe Latin American heads of state who rule by decree as de facto Presidents may be seen in this light.