José Mujica, Uruguay’s humble president who changed his country and
charmed the world, dies at 89
[May 14, 2025]
By MATILDE CAMPODÓNICO and ISABEL DEBRE
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, a
onetime Marxist guerilla and flower farmer whose radical brand of
democracy, plain-spoken philosophy and simple lifestyle fascinated
people around the world, has died. He was 89.
Uruguay's left-wing president, Yamandú Orsi, announced his death, which
came four months after Mujica decided to forgo further medical treatment
for esophageal cancer and enter hospice care at his three-room ranch
house on the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital.
“President, activist, guide and leader,” Orsi wrote of his longtime
political mentor before heading to Mujica's home to pay his respects.
“Thank you for everything you gave us.”
Mujica had been under treatment for cancer of the esophagus since his
diagnosis last spring. Radiation eliminated much of the tumor but soon
Mujica’s autoimmune disease complicated his recovery.
In January, Mujica’s doctor announced that the cancer in his esophagus
had returned and spread to his liver. In recent days, “he knew that he
was in his final hours,” said Fernando Pereira, the president of
Mujica's left-wing Broad Front party who visited the ailing ex-leader
last week.
A colorful history and simple philosophy
As leader of a violent leftist guerrilla group in the 1960s known as the
Tupamaros, 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 2010-2015 presidency, 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 legalizing marijuana and
same-sex marriage, enacting the region’s first sweeping abortion rights
law and establishing Uruguay as a leader in alternative energy.
Rejecting the pomp and circumstance of the presidency, he drove a light
blue beat-up 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, wore rumpled cardigan sweaters and
sandals with socks and lived in a tin-roof house outside Montevideo,
where for decades he tended to chrysanthemums for sale in local markets.
“This is the tragedy of life, on the one hand it’s beautiful, but it
ends,” Mujica told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging Oct. 2023
interview from his farmhouse. “Therefore, paradise is here. As is hell.”
As the Uruguayan government declared three days of national mourning,
tributes poured in from presidents and ordinary people around the world.
The first to share remembrances were allied leaders who recalled not
only Mujica's accomplishments but also his hallowed status as one of the
last surviving lions of the now-receding Latin American left that peaked
two decades ago.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro praised Mujica as a “great
revolutionary." Bolivia’s former socialist president, Evo Morales said
that he “and all of Latin America" are in mourning. Mexican President
Claudia Sheinbaum called Mujica “an example for Latin America and the
entire world.” Brazil's Foreign Ministry described him as “one of the
most important humanists of our time.”
Chile's leftist President Gabriel Boric paid tribute to Mujica's efforts
to combat social inequality.
“If you left us anything, it was the unquenchable hope that things can
be done better,” he wrote. “The unwavering conviction that as long as
our hearts beat and there is injustice in the world, it’s worth
continuing to fight.”
From robbing banks to running Uruguay
Mujica never attended university and didn’t 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 pivot to urban
guerrilla warfare came in the 1960s, as leftist struggles swept the
region in the wake of the Cuban Revolution.
He and other student and labor 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 upscale neighborhoods and attacking casinos
and other civilian targets, killing more than 30 people.
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Uruguay's former President Jose Mujica arrives to cast his vote in
Montevideo, Uruguay, Oct. 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko,
File)
Mujica was shot six times in a firefight with police in a bar. He
helped stage a prison break and twice escaped custody. But in 1973
the military seized power, unleashing a reign of terror upon the
population that resulted in the forced disappearance of some 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, Mujica left 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 centrist social
democrats.
Rapidly rising through the party ranks, Mujica charmed the country
with his low-key way of living and penchant for speaking his mind.
In 2005 he entered government with the Broad Front as an
agricultural minister. Just four years later he was Uruguay’s 40th
president, elected with 52% of the vote.
His wife, Lucía Topolansky, a former co-revolutionary guerrilla
member who was also imprisoned before becoming a prominent
politician, bestowed the presidential sash on Mujica at his
inauguration — as is custom for the senator who had received the
most votes. 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 Sunday as Mujica's
condition deteriorated.
A folksy president who fascinated the world
Pepe’s bracingly modest and spontaneous style as president —
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 seem like some impoverished president, but they were
the poor ones ... imagine if you have to live in that four-story
government house just to have tea,” he told the AP of his decision
to shun the presidential palace.
Over his years in power, Mujica presided over 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 Orsi, Mujica’s moderate protégé, to power.
Mujica's greatest innovations came on social issues. During his
term, Uruguay became the first country in South America to legalize
abortion for the first trimester and the first in the world to
legalize the production, distribution and sale of marijuana. His
government also legalized same-sex marriage, burnishing Uruguay’s
progressive image in the predominantly Catholic region.
Mujica’s government also powered a green energy revolution that
transformed Uruguay into one of the world’s most environmentally
friendly nations. Today the country generates 98% of its electricity
from biomass, solar and wind energy.
His tenure was also not without controversy. The opposition
complained of rising crime and a swollen fiscal deficit that forced
his successor to raise taxes.
Some world leaders disapproved of his disdain for the established
order. Conservative Uruguayans voiced outrage over his progressive
policies.
Still, Mujica ended his tenure with a 60% approval rating.
Ineligible to seek re-election because of a ban on consecutive
terms, he continued to wield influence at home as an elected senator
and abroad as a trailblazer and sage.
Even so, his humility defined him until the end.
“They ask you: ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ Vanity of
vanities!” he exclaimed to the AP. “Memory is a historical thing.
... Years go by. Not even the dust remains.”
___
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press
writers Leonardo Haberkorn in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Nayara
Batschke in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.
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