Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica dies at 89
He had been under treatment for cancer of the oesophagus since spring 2024.
Former Uruguayan president Jose Mujica has died at the age of 89.
He was a one-time Marxist guerrilla and flower farmer whose radical brand of democracy, plain-spoken philosophy and simple lifestyle fascinated people around the world.
Mr Mujica died four months after he decided to forgo further medical treatment for oesophageal cancer and enter hospice care at his three-room ranch house on the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital.
“President, activist, guide and leader,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote of his longtime political mentor on social media. “We will miss you greatly, dear old man. Thank you for everything you gave us and for your profound love for your people.”
He had been under treatment for cancer of the oesophagus since spring 2024 when the affliction was diagnosed. His doctor reported that radiation had eliminated much of the tumour but Mr Mujica’s autoimmune disease complicated his recovery.
In January, his doctor announced that the cancer in his oesophagus had returned and spread to his liver.
As leader of a violent leftist guerrilla group in the 1960s known as the Tupamaros, Mr Mujica robbed banks, planted bombs and abducted businessmen and politicians on Montevideo’s streets in hopes of provoking a popular uprising that would lead to a Cuban-style socialist Uruguay.
A brutal counterinsurgency and ensuing right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Uruguay between 1973 and 1985 sent him to prison for nearly 15 years, 10 of which he spent in solitary confinement.
During his 2010-15 presidency, Mr Mujica, widely known as Pepe, oversaw the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world’s healthiest and most socially liberal democracies.
He earned admiration at home and cult status abroad for legalising marijuana and same-sex marriage, enacting the region’s first sweeping abortion rights law and establishing Uruguay as a leader in alternative energy.
Through his remarkable political journey, he captivated audiences with his humble tone, austere lifestyle and ideological earnestness.
Shunning the pomp and circumstance of the presidency, he drove a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, wore rumpled cardigans and leather sandals with black socks, and lived in a tiny tin-roofed house outside Montevideo, where for decades he tended to chrysanthemums to sell in local markets.
“This is the tragedy of life, on the one hand it’s beautiful, but it ends,” he told the Associated Press from his farmhouse in October 2023. “Therefore, paradise is here. As is hell.”
Tributes poured in from presidents, world leaders and ordinary people from around the world. The first to share remembrances were allied leaders who recalled not only Mr Mujica’s accomplishments but also his status as one of the last surviving lions of the now-receding Latin American left that peaked when he assumed office two decades ago.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro praised him as a “great revolutionary”, Bolivia’s former socialist president Evo Morales said he “and all of Latin America” are in mourning, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called Mr Mujica “an example for Latin America and the entire world”.
Mr Mujica never attended university and did not finish high school, but politics piqued his interest as early as adolescence, when the young flower farmer joined the progressive wing of the conservative National Party, one of the two main parties in Uruguay.
His dramatic switch to urban guerrilla warfare came in the 1960s as leftist struggles swept the region after the Cuban Revolution.
He and other student and labour radicals launched the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement, which quickly gained notoriety for its Robin Hood-style exploits aimed at installing a revolutionary government.
By 1970 the government cracked down, and the Tupamaros responded with violence, planting bombs in well-heeled districts and attacking casinos and other targets, ultimately killing more than 30 people.
Mr Mujica was shot six times in a firefight with police in a bar, and helped stage a famous prison break and twice escaped custody, but in 1973 the military seized power, unleashing a reign of state terror on the population that resulted in the forced disappearance of 200 Uruguayans and the imprisonment of thousands.
During his time in prison, he endured torture and long stretches in solitary confinement, often in a hole in the ground.
After power returned to civilians in 1985, Mr Mujica emerged from prison under an amnesty that covered the crimes of the dictators and their guerrilla opponents. He entered mainstream politics with the Broad Front, a coalition of radical leftists and more centrist social democrats.
Elected to parliament in 1995, he astonished parking attendants and the general public by arriving to work on a moped with ragged jeans and an unkempt beard.
Rapidly rising through the party ranks, he charmed the country with his low-key way of living and penchant for speaking his mind.
In 2008, the Broad Front chose him as their presidential candidate, and a year later, he was elected Uruguay’s 40th president with 52% of the vote, capping an extraordinary political transformation.
His wife, Lucia Topolansky, a former co-revolutionary guerrilla member who was also imprisoned before becoming a prominent politician, bestowed the presidential sash on Mr Mujica at his inauguration. They married in 2005 and had no children.
“I’ve been with him for over 40 years, and I’ll be with him until the end,” she told a local radio station on Sunday as Mr Mujica’s condition worsened.
Pepe’s modest and spontaneous style — delivering presidential announcements in sandals, distributing pamphlets in the streets against machismo culture, lunching in Montevideo bars — made him a populist folk hero and token of global fascination.
“They made me look like a poor president, but they are the poor ones … if you have to live in that government house with four floors just to have tea,” he told the AP.
As president, he presided over a period of comfortable economic growth, rising wages and falling poverty. In speeches, he pushed Uruguayans to reject consumerism and embrace their nation’s tradition of simplicity.
Under his watch, the small nation became known worldwide for the strength of its institutions and the civility of its politics — rare features most recently on display during Uruguay’s 2024 presidential vote that vaulted Mr Orsi to power over the conservative incumbent.
