Uruguay Jose Mujika, the most overly president of the world, dies

Former Uruguayan President Jose Mujika, known as Pepe, died at the age of 89.

The former Gurilla, which ruled Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, was known as the “poorest president” in the world for her humble lifestyle.

Current President Yamandu Orsi announced the death of his predecessor of X, wrote: “Thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people.”

The cause of death policy is unknown, but it suffers from esophageal cancer.

Because of the simple way he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and social reforms he encouraged – which, among other things, meant that Uruguay became the first country to legalize the entertainment use of marijuana – Mujika became a well -known political figure in Latin America and outside.

His global popularity is unusual for President of Uruguay, a country with only 3.4 million inhabitants, where his heritage also gave rise to some dispute.

In fact, although many tend to look at Mujika as a person outside the political class, it was not the case.

He said his passion for politics, as well as to the books and work on Earth, was betrayed to him by his mother, who raised him in a middle -class home in Montevideo, the capital.

As a young man, Mujika was a member of the National Party, one of Uruguay’s traditional political forces, which later became the right of his government’s centers.

In the 1960s, it assisted the creation of the National Liberation of Tupamaros (MLN-T), a leftist urban partisan group that carried out attacks, abductions and executions, although it always maintained that it did not commit any murder.

Influenced by the Cuban Revolution and International Socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign for secret resistance to the Uruguayan government, which at that time was constitutional and democratic, although the left accused of being increasingly authentic.

During this period, Mujika was captured four times. In one of these cases in 1970 he was shot six times and almost died.

He escaped from prison twice, once through a tunnel with 105 other MLN-T prisoners, in one of the biggest escapes in the history of Uruguay Prison.

When, in 1973, the Uruguayan military organized a coup, they included it in a group of “nine hostages” who threatened to kill if the guerrillas continued their attacks.

For more than 14 years he spent in prison in the 1970s and 1980s, he was tormented and spent the greater part of that time in harsh conditions and isolation until he was released in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

He said that during his prison, he experienced first -hand madness, suffering from delusions and even talking to ants.

On the day he was released, he was his most men’s memory, he says, “Becoming a president was insignificant compared to that.”

A few years after his release, he served as a legislator, both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, respectively the lower and upper houses of the country.

In 2005, he became a minister in the first government of French Amplio, the Uruguayan Left Coalition, before becoming President of Uruguay in 2010.

At that time he was 74 years old and, for the rest of the world, still unknown.

His choice marks an important moment for the Latin American left, which was already strong on the continent at the time. Mujika became the leader with other left -wing presidents such as Luis Inasio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

However, Mujika rules in her own way, demonstrating pragmatism and audacity several times, political commentators say.

During its administration, against the backdrop of a rather favorable international context, the Uruguayan economy increased at an average annual rate of 5.4%, poverty was reduced and unemployment remained low.

Uruguay also attracted the global attention to the social laws adopted by parliament over the years, such as abortion legalization, the recognition of same -sex marriage and the state regulation of the marijuana market.

While in his post, Mujika rejected the relocation to the presidential residence (mansion), as the heads of state around the world usually do.

Instead, he stayed with his wife, a politician and a former guerrilla Lucia Topolanski – in their humble home on the outskirts of Montevideo, without internal help and a little security.

This was combined with the fact that he had always dressed carelessly, that he was often seen driving his light blue Volkswagen Beetle since 1987 and gave much of his salary, led some media outlets to call him “the most president in the world.”

But Mujika always rejected this title: “They say I’m the most overly president. No, I’m not,” he told me in an interview for 2012 at his home. “The poor are those who want more (…) because they are in an endless race.”

Although Mujika preaches strict savings, his government has significantly increased public spending, expanding the fiscal deficit and making his opponents accuse him of waste.

Mujika was also criticized for failing to turn the growing problems in Uruguayan education, although she promised that education would be a top priority for his administration.

However, unlike other leaders in the region, he has never been accused of corruption or undermining the democracy of his country.

At the end of his administration, Mujika had a high rating of the popularity of internal popularity (nearly 70%) and was selected as a senator, but also spent some of his time traveling the world after retiring as a president.

“So, what attracts the attention of the world? That I live with a very small, ordinary house that walks in an old car? Then this world is crazy because it is surprised by (what is) normal,” he reasoned before leaving office.

Mujika withdrew from politics in 2020, although he remained a central figure in Uruguay.

His political heir, Imamadud Orsi, was Uruguay President In November 2024, his group at the Frente Amplio group received the largest number of parliamentary places after the country’s return to democracy.

Last year, Mujika announced that she had cancer and references to her age and the relentless closeness of death became more frequent – but always accepted the end result as something natural, without drama.

In the last interview, he gave the BBC last November, he said, “One knows that death is inevitable. And maybe it is like the salt of life.”