Commentary
Pepe Mujica, the common-sense guerrilla who became president
His politics was fundamentally oriented towards happiness: “Development must be in favor of human happiness, of love on Earth, of human relationships.”
“A warrior has the right to rest.”
And José Alberto Mujica – “El Pepe,” as his fellow Uruguayans affectionately call him – truly was one. He risked his life as a guerilla fighter in the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement starting from 1966, and paid for it with 13 years in prison, from 1972 to 1985. He faced a harsh prison regime, isolation and psychological and physical torture, but emerged unbroken.
That prison time seriously affected his health, as he admitted in early January of this year, when he announced: “I’m simply dying. The cancer has reached my liver … I don’t want heavy chemo or surgery; my body has been through too much … A warrior has the right to rest.” Pepe asked to be left in peace at home with his partner of more than 50 years, Lucía Topolansky, herself a former militant against the dictatorship and a former senator. He died there on Tuesday, May 13, aged 89. He was born in Montevideo on May 28, 1935.
To rest, he withdrew to his humble chacra (small farm) in Rincón del Cerro, in the poor outskirts of Montevideo, to which he returned in 2015 after five years as president of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. He drove his now-mythic Volkswagen Beetle, immortalized in Emir Kusturica’s documentary El Pepe, una vida suprema. That battered car, which he used to travel between his three-room house at the chacra to the presidential palace and back, symbolized his frugal style as a man of the people. He donated almost 90% of his salary to the fight against poverty.
“Pepe is the last political hero in a world where politicians talk about things people don’t understand,” said Kusturica. Uruguayan journalists Andrés Danza and Ernesto Tulbovitz, who wrote a book dedicated to Mujica, Una oveja negra al poder (A Black Sheep in Power), agree with this assessment. Even though Mujica came from the guerrilla and later the left-wing Movement of Popular Participation (MPP), then became the symbol that led the Frente Amplio to victory in the 2010 election and took the presidency during Latin America’s first (progressive) “pink wave” that took hold in a number of Latin American (and Caribbean) countries at the start of the 21st century, he never embraced the 21st-century version of socialism proclaimed by Hugo Chávez and backed by Fidel Castro.
He admired its leaders, shared some of their programs and anti-imperialist goals, but did not agree with the ideological approach. He remained a black sheep, a highly respected leader of the Latin American left who, as former Argentine president Alberto Fernández said, “spoke like a philosopher,” but always outside the box.
He was, and prided himself on being, a “pragmatist.” Danza and Tulbovitz describe a man opposed to dogma and in love with common sense: “One of the greatest sources of knowledge is common sense,” Mujica said. “Putting ideology above reality is a mistake. Reality hits you like a punch and knocks you down … I have to fight to improve people’s lives in today’s concrete reality, and not to do so is immoral … That is reality. I cannot sacrifice people’s welfare for ideals.”
His ideals served ordinary people, driven by progressive liberalism and an uncompromising critique of consumerism. It took a lot of courage to pass the liberal reforms that, under his presidency, decriminalized abortion, legalized same-sex marriage and put the sale of marijuana under state control, striking a blow against the narcos.
His politics was fundamentally oriented towards happiness: “Development must be in favor of human happiness, of love on Earth, of human relationships.” He repeated this idea in many political speeches, including at the CELAC summit in Havana in 2014, subverting the usual leftist language to some extent, yet drawing applause and support.
On that occasion I met him briefly. He told me that his mother was from Liguria, as I am, and that his success also represented the triumph of integration and multiculturalism. “Porque la raza pura es una mierda” – “Because pure race is shit.”
He admired Cuba and Fidel, but his way of governing was different. He could sit at a table with the leaders of 21st-century socialism – often with Ecuador’s Correa, and even more with his Brazilian friend Lula – but at home in Montevideo he would sit down and negotiate with businesspeople. “If I throw them out and nationalize, I run the risk that investment will shrink and jobs for my people will disappear,” he explained. He made me see that the Cuban experience, for instance, showed the state could not guarantee it could manage business better. One has to be pragmatic, he concluded, and stand with common sense – the best of all ideologies – while putting forward progressive ideas.
An ex-Tupamaro who rose to the presidency of Uruguay, he was the first former guerrilla — and probably the only one — to be invited to the Oval Office at the White House by then-President Obama, who was preparing to “open up to Cuba” and visit Havana in 2016. A true black swan.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/vita-suprema-di-pepe-mujica on 2025-05-14