Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, known as “Pepe”, has died at the age of 89.
The ex-guerrilla who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the world’s “poorest president” because of his modest lifestyle.
Current President Yamandú Orsi announced his predecessor’s death on X, writing: “thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people.”
The politician’s cause of death is not known but he had been suffering from oesophageal cancer.
Because of the simple way he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted – which, among other things, meant Uruguay became the first country to legalise the recreational use of marijuana – Mujica became a well-known political figure in Latin America and beyond.
His global popularity is unusual for a president of Uruguay, a country with just 3.4 million inhabitants where his legacy has also generated some controversy.
In fact, even though many tended to see Mujica as someone outside the political class, that was not the case.
He said his passion for politics, as well as for books and working the land, was passed on to him by his mother, who raised him in a middle-class home in Montevideo, the capital city.
As a young man, Mujica was a member of the National Party, one of Uruguay’s traditional political forces, which later became the centre-right opposition to his government.
In the 1960s, he helped set up the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T), a leftist urban guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions, although he always maintained that he did not commit any murder.
Influenced by the Cuban revolution and international socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign of clandestine resistance against the Uruguayan government, which at the time was constitutional and democratic, although the left accused it of being increasingly authoritarian.
During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of those occasions, in 1970, he was shot six times and nearly died.
(BBC News)
