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 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.”
Mujica had been under treatment for cancer of the esophagus since spring 2024, when the affliction was diagnosed. His doctor reported that radiation had succeeded in eliminating much of the tumor but 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.
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.
Through his remarkable political journey, Mujica captivated audiences with his humble tone, austere lifestyle and ideological earnestness.
Shunning the pomp and circumstance of the presidency, he drove a beat-up 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, wore rumpled cardigan sweaters and leather sandals with black socks and lived in a tiny 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 from his farmhouse in an October 2023 interview. “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 Mujica's accomplishments but also his hallowed 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 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.”
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 dramatic 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 brazen 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.
Mujica was shot six times in a firefight with police in a bar. He helped stage a legendary prison break and twice escaped custody. But in 1973 the military seized power, unleashing a reign of state 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 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, Mujica charmed the country with his low-key way of living and penchant for speaking his mind.
In 2005 he was named Minister of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries. He held that post until 2008, when the Broad Front chose him as their presidential candidate. A year later, he was elected Uruguay’s 40th president with 52% of the vote, capping an extraordinary political transformation.
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 worsened.
A folksy president who fascinated the world
Pepe’s bracingly 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 Orsi, Mujica’s moderate protégé, to power over the conservative incumbent.
Mujica's greatest innovations came on social issues. During his tenure, 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 in Uruguay. Today Uruguay is considered among the world’s most environmentally friendly nations, generating 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 on his watch 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 the constitution’s ban on consecutive terms, he continued to wield considerable influence as an elected senator.
Despite his stardom as regional trailblazer and global sage, his humility defined him until the end.
“They ask you: ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ Vanity of vanities!” he exclaimed in his interview with the AP. “Memory is a historical thing. ... Years go by. Not even the dust remains.”
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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writers Leonardo Haberkorn in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Nayara Batschke in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.
Matilde Campodónico And Isabel Debre, The Associated Press
