Uruguay’s ex-president Jose Mujica, who at 89 is an icon for leftists across Latin America, hailed the return of the left to power in his country’s weekend elections as a “farewell gift.”
The ailing former guerrilla fighter — dubbed the world’s “poorest president” due to his humble lifestyle while in power — campaigned for president-elect Yamandu Orsi while recovering from esophageal cancer.
Orsi’s win, he told AFP, was “something of a reward for me at the end of my career.”
“It has something of a pleasant taste, a bit like a farewell gift,” he said in an interview late Thursday at his home down a dirt track in the countryside outside Uruguay’s capital Montevideo.
Mujica became a standard-bearer for the global left during his 2010-2015 rule because of his modest lifestyle and progressive social policies.
On a continent that has seen generations of flamboyant strongman leaders, corruption scandals and human rights abuses, he gave away most of his salary, drove himself around in a Volkswagen Beetle, and made Uruguay the first country in the world to fully legalize cannabis for recreational use.
Orsi, a former history teacher seen as Mujica’s understudy, won back the presidency for the leftist Broad Front coalition in Sunday’s election run-off, ending five years of center-right rule.
Uruguay is one of several South American countries to have swung left in recent years, along with Brazil, Chile and Colombia.
The leaders of those countries are struggling with how to respond to the growing authoritarianism of the leftist presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“Authoritarianism in Latin America is a step backwards,” Mujica said.
But he insisted with regard to the embattled sanctions-hit regime of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro: “Venezuela’s problems must be resolved by Venezuelans.
“In any case, they must be helped. But not interfered with.”
Maduro has struggled to win support from key fellow left-wing Latin American leaders — including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — for his claim to have won a third six-year term in hotly-disputed July 28 elections.
The 62-year-old socialist strongman has defied domestic and international calls to produce detailed election results to back his assertion.
The United States has recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela’s “president-elect” on the basis of results published by the opposition from over 80 percent of polling stations.
