José Mujica, known as “Pepe”, has died at the age of 89, after a battle with esophagal cancer.
He was the president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 and was a former guerrilla fighter.
He was known as the world’s poorest president because of the modest lifestyle he chose to lead.
Mujica gained popularity outside of Uruguay, a small country often obscured in international media, for his adventurous life and offbeat worldview.
But he also generated controversy: it was under his presidency that Uruguay became the first country to legalize recreational marijuana. He also legalized same-sex marriage and abortion.
He criticized consumerism and promoted social reform — something essential in Latin America.
Influenced by his mother in Montevideo, who cultivated his keen interest for politics, agriculture and literature, Mujica started out as a “National” (traditionalist_ and would later oppose this right-turned party.
In the 1960s, he was instrumental in the creation of the Cuban-inspired Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T) — a leftist urban guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions.
But Mujica claimed he himself did not commit or facilitate murder. He was captured four times and shot six times, narrowly escaping, and participating in one of Uruguay’s most famous prison escapes.
He spent over 14 years in prison, often under torture and isolation, suffering from delusion and going mad from loneliness, speaking to ants.
But his resole and vision were never definitely crushed — after his release, he served as lawmaker, minister, and eventually president at the age of 74, when he became an important figure of the Latin American left.
Under his presidency, the Uruguayan economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.4%, poverty was reduced, and unemployment remained low — although his government increased public spending to dangerous limits.
Instead of spending money on a presidential residence, he remained in his modest household on the outskirts of Montevideo with his wife, former guerrilla Lucía Topolansky, driving his light blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle in casual clothing and preferring to give his salary to charity.
