José Mujica of Uruguay, the “poorest president” in the world, died

Former Uruguayan president José Mujica, known as “Pepe”, died at the age of 89.

The ex-warrilla who ruled Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the “poorest president” in the world because of his modest lifestyle.

The current president Yamandú Orsi announced the death of his predecessor on X, writing: “Thank you for all that you have given us and for your deep love for your people.”

The cause of the death of the politician is not known but he suffered from Espophagus cancer.

Because of the simple way he experienced as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted – which, among other things, meant that Uruguay has become the first country to legalize the recreational use of marijuana – Mujica has become a well -known political figure in Latin America and beyond.

Its global popularity is unusual for a president of Uruguay, a country with only 3.4 million inhabitants where its inheritance has also aroused a certain controversy.

In fact, even if many tended to see Mujica as someone outside the political class, this was not the case.

He said that his passion for politics, as well as for books and the work of the earth, had been transmitted to him by his mother, who raised him in a middle -class house in Montevideo, the capital.

As a young man, Mujica was a member of the National Party, one of the traditional political forces of Uruguay, which later became the central opposition on the right to his government.

In the 1960s, he helped create the National Liberation Movement of Tupamaros (MLN-T), a group of left-wing urban guerrilla warfare which made attacks, kidnappings and executions, although he always argued that he had not committed any murder.

Influenced by the Cuban Revolution and international socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign of clandestine resistance against the Uruguayan government, which was in the constitutional and democratic era, although the left accused it of being more and more authoritarian.

During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of these occasions, in 1970, he was killed six times and almost died.

He escaped twice in prison, on an occasion by a tunnel with 105 other MLN-T prisoners, in one of the greatest escapes in the history of the prison in Uruguayan.

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

During the over 14 years he spent in prison in the 1970s and 1980s, he was tortured and spent most of this time in difficult conditions and isolation, until it was released in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

He used to say that during his stay in prison, he experienced a madness of the first -hand, suffering from delusions and even speaking in ants.

The day he was released was his happiest memory, he said: “Becoming president was insignificant in relation to this.”

A few years after his release, he was legislative, 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 Frente Amplio, the Uruguayan left coalition, before becoming president of Uruguay in 2010.

He was 74 years old at the time and, to the rest of the world, still unknown.

His election marked an important moment for the Latin American left, which was already strong on the continent at the time. Mujica has become a leader alongside other left presidents such as Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

However, Mujica governed in his own way, demonstrating pragmatism and daring on several occasions, say political commentators.

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

Uruguay has also drawn global attention to the social laws adopted by Parliament during these years, such as legalization of abortion, recognition of homosexual marriage and the regulations of the marijuana market.

During her mandate, Mujica has rejected the intention of settle in the presidential residence (a manor), as generally do the heads of the whole world.

Instead, he stayed with his wife – politician and former guerrilla lucía Topolansky – in their modest house on the outskirts of Montevideo, without domestic help and little security.

This combined with the fact that he always dressed with casualness, that he has often been seen to drive his Volkswagen Beetle in light blue 1987 and gave a large part of his salary, led some media to call him “the poorest president of the world”.

But Mujica has always rejected this title: “They say that I am the poorest president. No, I am not,” he said in an interview of 2012 at his home. “The poor are those who want more (…) because they are in an endless race.”

Despite Mujica preaching austerity, his government has considerably increased public spending, expanding the budget deficit and leading its opponents to accuse it of waste.

Mujica was also criticized for having failed to reverse growing problems in Uruguayan education, despite having promised that education would be an absolute priority for its 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 her administration, Mujica had a high domestic popularity rating (almost 70%) and was elected senator, but also spent part of his time traveling the world after resigning from its president.

“So, what attracts the attention of the world? That I live with very little, a simple house, which I drive in an old car? So this world is crazy because it is surprised by (what is) normal,” he thought before leaving his duties.

Mujica retired from politics in 2020, although there was a central figure in Uruguay.

His political heir, Yamandú Orsi, was elected president of Uruguay in November 2024 and his group within the Amplio de Frente has obtained the greatest number of parliamentary seats since the country’s return to democracy.

Last year, Mujica announced that he had cancer and references to his age and that the inexorable proximity of death has become more frequent – but he always accepted the end result as something natural, without drama.

In the last interview, he gave the BBC in November of last year, he said: “We know that death is inevitable. And it may be like the salt of life.”