Uruguays José Mujica, the “poorest president on the planet”, dies

Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, referred to as “Pepe”, died on the age of 89.

The ex-Guerrilla, which dominated Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, was referred to as the “poorest president” on the planet due to its modest life-style.

The present President Yamandú Orsi introduced the demise of his predecessor on X and wrote: “Thanks for every part you gave us and to your deep love to your folks.”

The politician’s explanation for demise shouldn’t be recognized, however he had suffered from prime most cancers.

Because of the easy means, as he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted – which meant that Uruguay was the primary nation to legalize the leisure use of marijuana – Mujica grew to become a nicely -known political persona in Latin America and past.

Its world recognition is uncommon for a President of Uruguay, a rustic with solely three.four million inhabitants, wherein its legacy additionally produced some controversy.

Though many tended to contemplate Mujica as somebody outdoors the political class, this was not the case.

He stated his ardour for politics in addition to the nation’s books and the nation’s work was on him from his mom, who raised him in a bourgeois home in Montevideo, the capital.

As a younger man, Mujica was a member of the Nationwide Occasion, one of many conventional political forces of Uruguay, which later grew to become an opposition to his authorities.

Within the 1960s, he helped to arrange the Tupamaros Nationwide Liberation Motion (MLN-T), a left-wing metropolis guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions, regardless that he all the time claimed that he had not dedicated a homicide.

The MLN-T was influenced by the Cuban Revolution and Worldwide Socialism and began a marketing campaign of secret resistance to the Uruguayan authorities, which at the moment was constitutional and democratic, regardless that the left accused of being more and more authoritarian.

Throughout this time Mujica was captured 4 instances. He was shot six instances in 1970 and nearly died on considered one of these events.

He escaped from jail twice, as soon as by a tunnel with 105 different MLN T prisoners in one of many biggest escape within the Uruguayan jail historical past.

When the Uruguayan navy carried out a coup of state in 1973, they took it into a gaggle of “9 hostages” that threatened them when the guerrillas continued their assaults.

Through the greater than 14 years he spent in jail within the 1970s and 1980s, he was tortured and spent more often than not below exhausting circumstances and isolation till he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

He all the time stated that in his time he skilled insanity in jail, suffered from delusions and even spoke to ants.

The day he was launched was his happiest reminiscence: “As compared, it was insignificant compared.”

Just a few years after his launch, he served as a legislator, each within the consultant chamber and within the Senate, the decrease and higher homes within the nation.

In 2005 he grew to become minister within the first authorities of Frente Amplio, the left coalition of the Uruguaya earlier than changing into president in Uruguay in 2010.

He was 74 years previous on the time and was nonetheless unknown to the remainder of the world.

His alternative was an necessary second for the Latin American left, which was already sturdy on the continent at the moment. Mujica was amongst different left -wing presidents similar to Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela Führer.

Nonetheless, Mujica dominated in his personal means and demonstrated pragmatism and boldness a number of instances, say political commentators.

Throughout its administration, the Uruguayan financial system grew in a reasonably low cost worldwide context with common annual charge of 5.four%, lowering poverty and unemployment remained low.

Uruguay additionally drew world consideration for the social legal guidelines adopted by Parliament in these years, such because the legalization of abortion, recognition of same-sex marriage and the state regulation of the marijuana market.

Throughout his time in workplace, Mujica refused to enter the president’s residence (a manor home), because the heads of state usually do all over the world.

As an alternative, he stayed along with his spouse – politician and former Guerilla Lucía Topolansky – in her modest house on the outskirts of Montevideo with out home assist and little safety.

Together with the truth that he all the time wearing informal, he was usually seen how he drove his gentle blue Volkswagen Beetle and gave a big a part of his wage, some media to name him “the poorest president on the planet”.

However Mujica all the time rejected this title: “You say I’m the poorest president. No, I am not,” he advised me in an interview from 2012 in his home. “Poor are those that need extra […] As a result of they’re in an infinite race. “

Regardless of Mujica, who preached austerity measures, his authorities elevated public expenditure, expanded the finances deficit and prompted his opponents to accuse him of waste.

Mujica was additionally criticized for this

In distinction to different leaders within the area, nonetheless, he was by no means accused of corruption or undermining the democracy of his nation.

On the finish of his administration, Mujica had a excessive recognition evaluation of home recognition (nearly 70%) and was voted the senator, but additionally spent a part of his time to journey all over the world after leaving as president.

“So what’s it that arouses the eye of the world? I stay with little or no, a easy home that I drive round in an previous automotive? Then this world is loopy as a result of it’s shocked by it [what is] Usually, “he mirrored earlier than leaving the workplace.

Mujica retired from politics in 2020, though he remained a central determine in Uruguay.

His political heritage Yamandú Orsi was elected President of Uruguay in November 2024, and his group throughout the Frente Amplio has acquired the most important variety of parliamentary seats for the reason that nation returned to democracy.

Final yr Mujica introduced that he had most cancers and indications of his age and that the unstoppable closeness of demise grew to become extra widespread – however he all the time accepted the ultimate consequence as one thing pure with out drama.

Within the final interview, he gave the BBC in November final yr: ” that demise is inevitable. And possibly it’s just like the salt of life.”