If only Bapu knew, the Indian poet Sarojini Naidu is said to have remarked with reference to Mahatma Gandhi, how much it costs us to keep him in poverty. It is highly unlikely that anyone would be tempted to make a comparable remark about Jose Mujica, the outgoing president of the South American republic of Uruguay.
Mujica’s austerity was legendary even before he was elected president in 2009. He lived in a small farmhouse often described as a shack and, as a legislator, rode to work on a motorbike. His lifestyle remained unchanged as the head of state, although the motorbike may have made way for a Volkswagen Beetle. He declined to move into the presidential palace in Montevideo, and decided to donate close to 90 percent of his salary to the needy — what’s left in terms of wages puts him on a par with the average Uruguayan.
This attitude puts Mujica in a league of his own. And it’s not just because it would be hard to find another president or prime minister — let alone a potentate — who abides by a similar set of rules. It’s also because it would be almost equally difficult to find anyone who considers the Uruguayan leader’s stance to be a pose or a posture. Uruguayans will choose his successor next Sunday in the second round of the nation’s presidential election, after Mujica’s predecessor — and likeliest successor — Tabare Vazquez came within a whisker of a first-round triumph last month. Vazquez, who belongs to the same left-leaning Broad Front as Mujica, wasn’t by any means unpopular among his compatriots, but he failed to attract half as much attention on the international front.
This was partly because by the time he became president in 2005, a progressive tendency in Latin America was more or less taken for granted, thanks in part to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. What’s particularly interesting about Mujica is that he offers a refreshing contrast not just to heads of state or government in other parts of the world, but also to broadly like-minded leaders within the region. A public relations guru who has worked with Mujica describes him as the least authoritarian character he has ever come across.
Why that should be something of a surprise is because once upon a time Mujica was one of the more notorious Tupamaros, an ostensibly Marxist bunch of urban guerrillas described back in the 1960s as Robin Hood revolutionaries, because they had a tendency to redistribute among the poor what they acquired from armed robberies at banks and elsewhere.
Back then, South America was awash in similar movements, most of which derived their inspiration from the Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara, who had participated in the 1959 Cuban revolution, and been executed while trying to foment an uprising in Bolivia. A large portrait of Che hangs in the official residence of Evo Morales, who was re-elected this year in a landslide to serve a third term as president.
A bust of Guevara also sits in Mujica’s humble home. It was a meeting with Che in Havana that turned him on to the prospect of effecting change by force, and although for some 30 years violence has no longer been his preferred mode of politics, Mujica still holds Che in high esteem, and claims — probably accurately — to be the only serving head of state to have personally encountered Mao Zedong.
Mujica’s Uruguay has hit the headlines chiefly on account of socially progressive measures or experiments. Despite a liberal predisposition that earned Uruguay the sobriquet of South America’s Switzerland early in the 20th Century, by the time Mujica entered maturity the scenario was somewhat different, amid growing disparities of wealth. The president has not by any means abandoned the conviction he acquired back then, to the effect that class distinctions are a curse that can and should be overcome. He just decided, some 30 years ago, that sporadic violence wasn’t the ideal means of accomplishing this desirable goal.
He has been well aware of his limitations in this respect, reluctantly acknowledging the need to operate, for the time being, within the limits of neoliberal capitalism, but never hesitating to publicly express his true views — a tendency that has won him fans worldwide, and within Uruguay has cemented his popularity at a higher level than the proportion of the vote he gained in 2010, with his outspoken honesty gaining him the affection even of those who share his ideology.
El Pepe, as he is popularly known in Uruguay, will formally bow out in March next year, but will resume his previous status as a senator — not by default, but because he was re-elected in that capacity last month. And if Vazquez wins on Sunday, chances are that many of the reforms enacted under Mujica will remain intact. Mujica spent 13 years in captivity in the 1970s and 80s, many of them in appalling conditions, including two years at the bottom of a well. He emerged from prison in 1985, after Uruguay’s military regime made way for civilian rule, proudly holding a potty that he had struggled to obtain after six bullet wounds left him unable to conform to the average expectations of bowel movements. By the time he got out, it was a marigold garden.
That serves as a suitable metaphor for Mujica’s inclinations. He is capable of growing flowers in the unlikeliest places. At least some of them, hopefully, will continue to bear testament to his enviable presidency after he bows out. Whether the precious seeds he has nonchalantly sowed will, in time, bloom in tiny Uruguay or elsewhere remains to be seen. Posterity, though, ought to recall him with much affection, as a template that could do the world much good but, sadly, is unlikely to be a replicated in a hurry anywhere around the globe.
