Former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica. The poorest president in the world: Uruguay's leader Jose Mujica resigns

Simple, liberal, and most importantly - the poorest in the world. This is the President of Uruguay, 78-year-old Jose Mujica, who with his initiatives managed to make almost all the country’s youth fall in love with him.

This man's lifestyle amazes the world community. Mujica, who won the presidential election in 2009, gives 90% of his own salary (about $12 thousand) to charity. He himself is content with little, living on a modest farm near the capital Montevideo. His estate differs from its neighbors only in that it is guarded by two policemen.

The president's best friend is his three-legged dog Manuela, with whom he is practically inseparable. The Uruguayan leader's vehicle is a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, the current cost of which does not reach $2 thousand.

“This is a question of freedom,” Mujica succinctly explains his refusal to respect the respectability befitting a president.

It matches the lifestyle of the head of state and his style of government, during which gay marriage, abortion and marijuana were legalized.

With the light hand of Mujica, Uruguay acquired the reputation of the most liberal state in Latin America. The tiny country of just over 3 million people, sandwiched between giants Argentina and Brazil, is coming under scrutiny.

For example, the authoritative British publication The Economist at the end of last year announced the country of the year for the first time in its history, and Uruguay became it. Analysts positively assessed the legalization of gay marriage and marijuana. The first, in their opinion, simply makes people happier at no cost, and the second helps law enforcement officers concentrate on more serious crimes. The magazine also spoke approvingly of Mujica himself.

“Modest, liberal and cheerful,” the publication wrote about the unique poor president.

However, Mujica does not consider himself poor.

“The poor are those who need more and more. They are constantly chasing something in circles, and they are constantly running out of time,” says the Uruguayan leader.

According to Mujica, he himself chose a modest life, but he can live the way he wants. The President recognizes the fact that in the eyes of the world he looks like an eccentric old man, and at the same time he has the great luxury of being able to live as he sees fit.

And most modern leaders, through their policies, force people into mass consumption, which then results in an economic crisis, justifying Mujica’s own asceticism.

Modest and honest

The path to the modest estate of the Uruguayan president lies through a dirt road, and he himself dresses like an ordinary farmer, carries water and grows flowers.

The middle-aged Mujica has a turbulent past. Coming from a family of poor farmers, in his youth he was a member of the radical left-wing Tupamaros movement, which became popular after the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959. Apart from spreading Marxism, the movement's main focus was on capturing the rich and powerful and then exacting a ransom for their release - the so-called revolutionary tax.

In memory of this period of his life, Mujica was left with traces of six bullet wounds and memories of a 14-year prison sentence. Moreover, he was kept in solitary confinement for most of his time. Knowing firsthand what it means to live in inhumane conditions, Mujica openly talks about how, upon being released, he was glad to be able to sleep on a simple mattress.

After his release in 1985, Mujica, together with other members of Tupamaros and representatives of some left-wing organizations, created the political party Popular Participation Movement. It quickly gained popularity, and already in 1994 Mujica was elected to parliament.

By 2004, the Popular Participation Movement turned out to be a major party that became part of the Uruguayan Broad Front, a left-wing political coalition in the country. In the summer of 2009, Mujica won the party elections, running as a presidential candidate from the Broad Front. This was followed by victory in the election of the head of state.

And it’s not just the legalization of marijuana initiated by the country’s leader. For example, now almost every Uruguayan child has access to a laptop or personal computer with the Internet without any restrictions. The government is doing everything possible to ensure that children even from the poorest families can use a PC.

Thus, with Mujica coming to power, the country began implementing the program “A laptop for every child,” under which all children of the poor, without exception, who do not have computers at home, received them from the state. In the first two years of the program, 362 thousand students acquired computers.

Poor children are Mujica's main headache. According to the president, after the end of his term of office, he plans to adopt and settle 30-40 homeless and abandoned children on his farm and personally teach them how to farm.

In addition, significant steps have been taken to provide low-cost housing for young people. Even Mujica's wife, Lucia Topolanski, a former guerrilla fighter and now senator, donates most of her income to a fund to build low-income housing.

The first couple of the state does not want either wealth or motorcades. The philosophy of life of the Uruguayan president is simple: if a person does not set himself the task of buying a lot of expensive things, there is no point in him working tirelessly all his life. This frees up more time for yourself.

In turn, Areshe reminds that her country is small and inhabited mainly by simple, peaceful people. In such conditions, the president does not require large-scale security measures.

Stable and liberal Uruguay is one of the most economically developed countries in Latin America. The per capita GDP here is $16,600. For comparison: in oil-rich Venezuela it is $13,600, and in neighboring Brazil it is $12,100.

Among all Latin American states, Uruguay, according to experts, has the most even distribution of income, which is why this country is often called the Switzerland of Latin America. And although many local industries are controlled by the state, the government has in recent years turned its course toward free markets and begun to encourage foreign investment. To ensure them, free trade zones, exempt from taxes, have been created.

At the same time, as Uruguayan Rodrigo Orozco notes, in other parts of the country taxes are high and goods are more expensive than in neighboring Argentina. For example, a car whose price in Uruguay reaches $25 thousand can be bought in Argentina for $15 thousand.

This does not prevent international experts from praising Uruguay's successes. According to the Legatum London Research Institute's Quality of Life Index, Uruguay is the best place to live in Latin America. The index takes into account such indicators of countries as the state of the economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, education, health, safety, and personal freedoms.

According to the Quality of Life Index, Uruguay ranks 30th. For comparison: the Czech Republic is on the 29th line, and Italy is on the 32nd. Uruguay's neighbors, Argentina and Brazil, are in 45th and 46th places, respectively.

However, Mujica is skeptical about all kinds of ratings and claims that if he “worried about sociologists, he would not be president.”

Full legalization

At the instigation of the current president of Uruguay, this country was the first in the world to completely legalize marijuana. The law adopted here allows not only the use, sale or cultivation of narcotic grass for non-commercial purposes, but also its commercial cultivation under state supervision.

Marijuana, according to the adopted law, can be sold in pharmacies at prices set by the authorities, and only adult citizens have the right to purchase it and in limited quantities. The sale of marijuana is prohibited for foreigners.

For all his innovations on the internal structure of Uruguay, Mujica was even nominated for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. His candidacy was submitted by the leftist party Frente Amplio, the farmers' association PlantaTu Planta and the Dutch Institute for Peace on Drugs.

Mujica thanked for the high honor.

“We only suggested trying a different path, since repression no longer works,” Mujica commented on his initiative. - We don’t know if we will succeed. We propose to fight not against marijuana, but against drug trafficking.”

Today in Uruguay they are confident that legalizing the production and sale of weed will not lead to people consuming it more, but will simply allow them to control this business.

The marijuana will most likely be grown in fields owned by the Department of Defense. The authorities are inclined to make this decision for security reasons - they say that the military will provide reliable security for the narcotic plants.

With all this, Mujica does not see any sedition, much less a breakthrough, in the extensive liberalization of the country’s legislation.

“We apply a simple principle: recognize the facts. Abortion is as old as time. Gay marriage - I beg you, it’s older than the world,” says the President of Uruguay.

He also clarifies that he is not a reformer, but merely recognizes the objective reality: according to Mujica, not legalizing gay marriage and drugs would simply be torture for some people.

Another innovation was the legalization of abortion. There is still a lot of controversy around it, but, according to Areshe, this is another step towards democracy and giving women the right to choose.

“Uruguay is becoming an increasingly attractive country,” writes the American magazine International Living. - Peaceful and stable, Uruguay is protected from natural disasters. He’s like the Old World, but with Latin American charm and flair.”

In general, the Uruguayans interviewed by the Correspondent value the government for a stable and calm life, but they perceive the lifestyle and eccentricities of their president ambiguously. Some believe that the head of state should still have a more respectable image, and that Mujica, who lives like ordinary people, thus popularizes poverty, which is also not very good.

The president himself says that you must always remain true to yourself.

“My lifestyle is a consequence of my wounds. I am the son of my history,” Mujica once said.

This material was published in No. 11 of the Correspondent magazine dated March 21, 2014. Reproduction of Korrespondent magazine publications in full is prohibited. The rules for using materials from the Korrespondent magazine published on the Korrespondent.net website can be found.

Going down in history as the poorest president in the world, the head of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, has come a long way from a partisan of the revolutionary movement to a popular politician, the first in the world to legalize marijuana and constantly rethinking democratic values. In November, Uruguay will hold elections that will put an end to the era of El Pepe, as Uruguayans affectionately call the outgoing president. Apparat looked into the views of Jose Mujica and found out why consumer society does not suit him.

Jose Mujica

José Mujica lives with his wife and their three-legged Chihuahua Manuela in a small house on the working-class outskirts of Montevideo, near which grow chrysanthemums that the president sells. Mujica has a 25-year-old Volswagen Beetle - the Uruguayan does not buy luxury goods for himself and donates 90% of his salary to charity. In the second half of the 20th century, the future head of state was a member of the radical leftist Tupamaros movement, received six bullet wounds in a battle with the police, and then was imprisoned several times. The imprisonment shaped Mujica's political views. As president, he supported free markets, an independent judiciary, a free press, and legalized same-sex marriage. Under his leadership, Uruguay became the first country in South America to legalize abortion and the first in the world to fully legalize marijuana. His modest lifestyle and outspokenness turned him into a cult political figure outside Uruguay. True, the Uruguayans themselves consider him more of a harbinger of change than a decisive ruler capable of changing something. Some critics also note that the president's policies are inconsistent, and his statements are superficial and often contradict each other.

People are too fixated on material values

Jose Mujica believes that our society has gone too far in supporting consumer culture. Obsession with material things deprives people of the most important thing - freedom, since they become dependent on the market. If a person works all the time just to be able to acquire, then he becomes less and less free in his actions. By his example, as Mujica admits, he wants to show the world that you can be happy without putting material wealth on a pedestal.

We sacrificed the old immaterial gods in favor of the only God of the Market. It controls our economy, politics, our habits and our lives, is responsible for our credit cards and exchange rates and creates the illusion of happiness. It seems that we are born only to consume and consume and end up unsatisfied, in poverty and self-isolation.

The priority for society should be the consumption of healthy things

Mujica blames consumer society for slowing progress and complicating our relationship with the material world. The President is confident that we are spending resources on more and more unnecessary things. According to the Uruguayan politician, it is necessary to increase the consumption of only necessary goods, while avoiding the waste of energy, natural resources and time on the creation of useless material values. That is why he is convinced that in today's world we need to fight not an environmental crisis, but a management crisis. This is a problem of global importance that one country cannot solve.

The richest countries must pay to eradicate poverty throughout the world and encourage the whole world to consume only healthy things. It's ridiculous how much we waste and how many useless things we produce only to be rendered useless when, somewhere on the other side of the Earth, women have to walk five kilometers to get some fresh water.

We need to control the process of globalization

Mujica is not an opponent of globalization. It allowed Uruguayan farmers to supply products to China and saved many Uruguayans from poverty - since 2005, the poverty rate in Uruguay has decreased from 40 to 13%. At the same time, he notes that the process of globalization should take place under the constant supervision of politicians - they should take responsibility for what is happening in the world, and not rely on the will of the market.

Today, globalization can be dangerous because it is now a process driven entirely by the market. There are no regulatory norms, no regulatory institution. National governments are only concerned about the next elections, while there are a number of global problems that no one is addressing.

Politicians from different countries should work together to redistribute wealth

For the persistent gap between rich and poor in the world, Mujica blames market relations, which have taken over all areas of our lives. While companies are solely focused on making a profit, it is up to governments to distribute benefits in a way that eradicates poverty.

Today we can recycle almost everything. If only we were more thrifty and lived within our means, then now seven billion people on the planet could have everything they need. World leaders should think in this direction. But people and countries each think for themselves individually, forgetting about humanity as a whole.

Digital technologies will give rise to a new form of democracy

As a young man, Mujica met Che Guevara in Cuba, who made a great impression on him - a bust of the Cuban leader still stands in his home. Like his idol, Mujica does not accept the idea of ​​exploitation of human labor by other people and believes that society will come to a more just political system. At the same time, the former revolutionary Mujica, unlike many other Latin American leaders, managed to reconcile the pragmatism of the capitalist world and the idealism of the socialist one. He calls the main advantage of democracy respect for the opinions of those who think differently, and as a result, the ability of the system to change. Mujica is confident that the necessary changes can happen with the help of new technologies

Democracy cannot be viewed as something complete or ideal. There is only the course of history that never ends. Perhaps right now, thanks to digital technologies, conditions are emerging for the formation of a democracy that is simply impossible to imagine today.

...but for this you need to change the worldview of many people

Mujica sees the main problem not so much in the structure of the market itself, but in the way people think. Humanity has long moved from a consumer society to a hyperconsumption society. As a result, goods with a short life cycle are produced, which are quickly thrown away, and everything starts all over again - people find themselves locked in this vicious circle. And it is in politicians that Mujica sees people who can influence human consciousness.

Life slips through your fingers like sand while you work and work, maybe even overtime, just to gain more. Consumer society is the engine of all these problems. If consumption is paralyzed in it, economic processes stop, and if the economy no longer functions, this is the specter of stagnation, which can affect each of us. But it is this overconsumption that harms the planet. This problem is political in nature and shows us that it is necessary to fight for the formation of a different culture.

When people finally get enough, they will be happier.

An optimist, Mujica believes that the time will come when people will finally have their fill. It is then that they will begin to look at seemingly ordinary things differently. The President believes that when a person has too many benefits for personal use, he does not have time left to simply be happy. Mujica sees the main task of economic development as the preservation of the main earthly value - human happiness.

We don't just come into this world to just grow up and change. We come into this world to be happy. Because life is short and it eludes us. No material wealth is worth a human life, and this is the most important thing.

Cover Art: Willy Verginer

Mujica was born to Lucy Cordano and Demetrio Mujica. Jose's mother came from a family of poor Italian immigrants. Demetrio Mujica, a descendant of Spanish Basques, was engaged in farming, but did not achieve much success; his farm went bankrupt, and he himself died. At the time of his father's death, Mujica Jr. was only 5 years old.

In his youth, José was a member of the National Party; there he became quite close friends with Enrique Erro. He also had the usual hobbies for a teenager - for example, Jose was quite actively involved in cycling.

In the early 60s, Mujica joined the Tupamaros movement, an armed rebel group inspired by stories of the Cuban revolution. In 1969, Jose took part in the capture of the city of Pando; alas, this city did not remain in the hands of the rebels for long. José Mujica was arrested and tried before a military court. In general, during his time in Tupamaros, Mujica more than once fell into the hands of the authorities; He was arrested at least four times. During his arrest in 1972, Jose received six bullet wounds at once; however, this did not force him to search for a more peaceful profession.

After the military mutiny of 1973, José was transferred to a military prison; there he spent 14 years - and for more than 2 years he had to sit at the bottom of a specially dug well. Mujica, however, did not break this - even from prison he continued to contact other Tupamaros leaders.

In 1985, constitutional democracy came to the country, and Mujica was released under an amnesty. A few years later, José - along with other Tupamaros - joined a number of left-wing organizations, creating the political party Movement of Popular Participation.

In 1994, Mujica was elected deputy, and in 1999, senator. His movement continued to gain popularity, not least thanks to the unique charisma of Mujica himself; by 2004, the Movement had become the second largest party within the Uruguayan Broad Front.

In 2004, Mujica was re-elected to the Senate. On March 1, 2005, President Tabaré Vázquez appointed José Mujica Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries; Jose held this position until the personnel changes in 2008. After resigning as minister, Mujica returned to the Senate.

Finance Minister Danilo Astori was widely considered Vázquez's most likely successor; however, Jose Mujica also had many supporters.

Best of the day

On July 28, 2009, Mujica won the party elections, becoming the presidential candidate of the Broad Front.

In the presidential elections, José Mujica received more than 48% of the votes; his competitor, ex-president Alberto Lacalle, managed to get only 30%. Since Mujica still failed to get an absolute majority of votes, a second round was organized; here Jose already received 52% - against Lacalle's 43%.

The new Mujica government was assembled from members of various branches of the Broad Front; Danilo Astori became its vice president. High hopes were placed on Jose Mujica - he was the first ex-rebel who managed to sit in the presidential chair of Uruguay.

In June 2012, Jose Mujica and his government started talking about legalizing the marijuana trade; this measure was supposed to reduce the number of crimes related to drugs in one way or another and bring additional income to the treasury. Mujica called on the leaders of other countries to also follow his example.

​The presidential term of one of the most popular world leaders in history has come to an end. Uruguay's President José "Pepe" Mujica has resigned after five years as head of state. During his presidency, he managed to transform an agricultural country into an energy-exporting state, boost the economy, reduce public debt, and reduce poverty. One of the most progressive leaders in Latin America, Jose Mujica legalized marijuana, abortion, same-sex marriage, and also agreed to accept former Guantanamo Bay prisoners into his country.

One of the most popular world leaders, President of Uruguay Jose “Pepe” Mujica, resigned after five years as head of state, English-language RT reports.

Former guerrilla Mujica, who lives on a farm and spends most of his salary on charity, left the presidency with a confidence rating of 65%. According to the Constitution of Uruguay, he cannot remain for a second term.

“I took office as president filled with idealism, but then I was faced with reality,” Mujica was quoted as saying in an interview with a local newspaper earlier this week.

Some call him "the poorest president in the world", others - "the president that any country would like to have." But the former Uruguayan leader modestly says the country "still has a lot to do" and hopes the new government led by Tabare Vázquez, who was elected president for a second time in November 2014, "will be better and will do better."

At the same time, the 79-year-old politician admitted that Uruguay owes its appearance on the world map to him. The former Uruguayan leader managed to transform an agricultural country of 3.4 million people into an energy-exporting state.

Uruguay's economy has grown at an average annual rate of 5.7% since 2005, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, the country has maintained its downward trend in its public debt-to-GDP ratio, from 100% in 2003 to 60% by 2014. In addition, Uruguay managed to reduce the cost of government debt and reduce the level of dollarization - from 80% in 2002 to 50% in 2014.

“These years have had a positive impact on addressing inequality. Ten years ago, about 39% of Uruguayans lived below the poverty line; we managed to reduce this figure to 11%, and also reduce the rate of extreme poverty from 5% to 0.5%,” the ex-president of Uruguay told the British media back in November last year.

After a failed drug war in Latin America, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalize marijuana. Mujica explained this decision by the fact that drug trafficking is much more dangerous than marijuana itself.

One of Latin America's most progressive leaders, José Mujica, also legalized abortion and same-sex marriage and agreed to accept former Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The six former prisoners, who have not been charged with a crime, arrived in Uruguay in December as refugees. Among them were four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian citizen.

The former leader of Uruguay, known in the past as a guerrilla leader of the Tupamaros group, spent 13 years in prison during the country's military dictatorship. He survived numerous tortures and spent months in solitary confinement. However, he never regretted this time, explaining that it was those years that helped shape his character.

When José Mujica took office as president in 2010, he refused to move into Uruguay's luxurious presidential mansion and chose to live on a farm outside Montevideo with his wife and three-legged dog Manuela. "Pepe" spends about 90% of his salary on charity, because, according to him, he does not need all this money.

There have been few principled unmercenaries among state leaders in the history of mankind. Frankly speaking, there were practically none. Such is human nature that, having seized power, it demands more gold. Of course, some have enough imagination for a three-story dacha, and others for an entire palace, but it is rare that a president or monarch restrains his acquisitive instincts.

One example of such tenacious people was the previous president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, nicknamed El Pepe. Let's remember how this ascetic president lived, and how any leader should live during an economic crisis.

Partisan youth

Mujica’s biography is not quite usual for our region, although it is probably quite banal for Latin America. In his youth he was a partisan. And he was even personally acquainted with the legendary Ernesto Che Guevara. The left-wing radical movement "Tupamaros", of which young Jose was a member, was engaged in pure terrorism in Uruguay. The guerrillas' practices included the kidnapping of officials and businessmen, bank robberies and other "direct action" actions. Of course, the local authorities caught the revolutionaries and put them in prison. Our hero did not escape this either, having spent a total of 14 years behind bars.

What can you do, it was such a time. Right- and left-wing terror was commonplace in Latin America in general and Uruguay in particular. But in 1985, the Tupamaros announced that they were pumping up the armed struggle and transferring it to the political plane. This is how the “People's Participation Movement” party appeared, which soon entered parliament.

This is how former guerrilla Jose Mujica became a politician. But he did not forget his old partisan habits.

Political rise

In 2005, Mujica was appointed Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, then became a senator. And in 2009, the Broad Front coalition nominated him for the presidency. And Jose suddenly won.

As the President of Uruguay, he was entitled to various material benefits. A car, a motorcade, the opportunity to live in a luxurious presidential palace with servants and enjoy various privileges and benefits. And then El Pepe shocked the public for the first time by abandoning all this.

He continued to live in his wife's extremely modest house on the outskirts of Montovideo. At first he didn’t have a car. But it’s difficult for the president to be completely without a car, so Mujica still forked out money for a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle. And, remarkably, he paid for the car out of his own pocket. Scary to say, as much as 1945 US dollars. The Beetle, in fact, remained his most significant purchase during his entire presidency.

He doesn't need a salary

Like any other head of state, the President of Uruguay receives a decent salary. Jose Mujica also received it, $12,500 a month. But he reasoned that he and his wife Lucia had never lived on that kind of money, so there was no point in starting.

At the family council, it was decided to distribute the presidential salary to charity, leaving only $1,250 for themselves. "This money is quite enough for me,” explained El Pepe, “it should be enough, because the incomes of many Uruguayans are much lower.”

However, Mujica never imposed his ascetic lifestyle on anyone. He is not one of those fiery revolutionaries who believe that everyone should live in poverty. Simply, as the president of the state, he could not afford to live much richer than the average citizen.

“If I asked people to live the way I live, they would kill me,” Mujica said laughing in an interview. Uruguayans appreciated both the president’s asceticism and his unobtrusiveness, and respectfully called “el presidente más pobre” - “the poorest president.”

And he’s not young anymore; after all, 82 years old is no joke. Now Mujica is, let's say, an honorary pensioner of Uruguay. He habitually gave the remainder of the various funds that had somehow accumulated during his presidency to charity, leaving something for himself to live on. He also bought three tractors to farm. He and his wife carry out all agricultural work themselves.

Out of respect for Mujica, the government assigned him two policemen to guard his home. Together with them, the ex-president’s peace is guarded by his beloved three-legged dog. Jose Mujica himself calls the hammer and shovel that once belonged to his father the most valuable things for himself:

“They are just insignificant things on the planet, but they are very valuable to me.”