Born in Montevideo in 1935, ‘El Pepe’ Mujica, as he was popularly known, represented an unusual facet of politics, since he traveled a long way since he participated in the guerrillas in the 70s – and that cost him 12 years in prison – until he won a democratic election. Thus, it was consolidated as a president without university titles that was never enriched or wanted to use the privileges of power.
In 2010, after assuming the position, he did not even want to move to the elegant presidential residence. Out of the protocols, he chose to live in his simple old house, next to his wife Lucía Topolanski, another of the historical, fundamental and greater recognition figures in regional policy. They never had properties, goods, luxurious cars or bulky bank accounts. Not a single suspicion of corruption.
Mujica also distinguished himself because he always declared an atheist, an identity that differentiated him from the rest of the Latin American leaders who swore on Bibles, go to masses, pray and ask God to help them govern.
Thanks in part to those convictions away from all religious pressure, it promoted the legalization of abortion and marriage between people of the same sex.
But if something surprised at this ex -guerrilla was the unprecedented boldness he had when counteracting the entrenched drug policies globally to make Uruguay the first country to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana.
Thus, he made the world turn to see, whether with amazement, skepticism or admiration, to a “country” – as the writer Eduardo Galeano defined with affection – of just over three million inhabitants nestled in the south of the Atlantic Ocean.
So much caught the attention, that the Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica wanted to tell his story in a documentary titled ‘El Pepe: a supreme life’, which premiered in 2018 at the Venice Festival.
A militancy life on the left
Militancy caught Mujica since she was a teenager. Therefore, at 21 he decided to completely leave the studies to join the National Party, a force that emerged to counteract the Colorado party, which ruled the country for almost a century.
But the white party was more from the right and Mujica felt more ideologically identified with the left, so, in the early 60s, it joined the construction of the new popular union.
It lasted a short time, since in 1964 the National-Tupamaros Liberation Movement was integrated, the extreme left guerrillas that identified with the Cuban Revolution and that sought to take power for weapons at a time when the country suffered instability, with a succession of collegiate governments, a serious economic crisis, growing social protests and repressions.
Tupamaros began to acquire international impact through kidnappings, executions, attacks with explosives and robberies of banks that committed to finance. And in which Mujica and the rest of the guerrillas participated.
In the 1971 presidential elections, leftist organizations created the Frente Amplio and its candidate, Líber Sregni, obtained 18 % of the votes. It seemed that the nascent bipartisanship between the White Party and the Colorado Party broke.
The results, however, were overshadowed by a fraud that, as verified three decades later, was organized by the US and granted the victory to Juan María Bordaberry (Colorado Party), the president who in 1973 would lead a self -golpe that would begin a succession of military regimes that ruled until 1985.
Confinement and return
For 12 years, Mujica became a hostage of the dictatorship. The arrest had been extrajudicial and never judged him or charged formal charges, so he was a victim of a kidnapping.
With the guerrillas already defeated, the Tupamaros were permanent victims of torture and all kinds of vexations until, at the dawn of democracy recovered in 1985, they achieved the benefit of an amnesty law that allowed them to leave prison.
Mujica left the weapons behind and returned to politics. He joined the Frente Amplio – the conglomerate of progressive forces born in the early 70s – and in 1995 he obtained his first position of popular election by winning a seat in the House of Representatives.
Already as a deputy, Mujica began to obtain a greater prominence in the public life of the country. His guerrilla past did not prevent him from achieving growing leadership and popularity, at the same time that the Broad Front was strengthened and, now, the bipartisanship created by the National Party and the Colorado Party faded.
In 1999, Mujica became a senator. That year, the FA candidate, Tabaré Vázquez, managed to advance to the second round against Jorge Batlle (Colorado Party). Although he did not win, it seemed that it was only a matter of organization and time for the left to reach the presidency. And so it was. In 2004, Vázquez won bluntly in the first round with 51.6 % of the votes.
In 2010, Mujica would join the select group.
Government and legacy
Mujica won the 2009 presidential elections, in a second round, with 54.6 % of the votes.
At 74, he strengthened himself as a disheveled leader, without interest in protocols or political correction, but also pragmatic, away from the ideological extremism that his beginnings had marked.
After more than four decades, the transition of guerrilla and political prisoner victim of a dictatorship to democratic ruler had been consummated.
But I was still surprised. In 2012, without anyone waiting for him, Mujica promoted to end prejudices and legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes. That is, in the entire commercial circuit of a plant that is still subject to stigmatization. No country had dared so much.
It was a risky bet, since it broke the fear of the war on drugs imposed by the US, in addition to the project was not supported by most Uruguayans. The intense social debate that exploded in Uruguay raised worldwide attention.
It was not the only controversy. In 2011, Mujica refloated the legalization of abortion that her predecessor, Tabaré Vázquez, had banned that 60 % of the population did support the measure.
A year later, Uruguay became the second country in Latin America and the Caribbean, after Cuba, in legalizing the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in the first 12 weeks of gestation, or later, if it was the product of a violation.
The innovative and progressive nature of the Mujica government with respect to civil rights was consolidated in 2013, when the law of equal marriage that allows them to marry same sex entered into force and that, at that time, at the regional level it had only been approved in Argentina.
Farewell
In 2014, the Uruguayan left won its third consecutive general election, which allowed Mujica to return the presidential band to Tabaré Vázquez, the leader of the Broad Front that this year returned to apply.
Mujica then returned to the Senate, where he remained until 2020, when he resigned from the seat and ended his political career due to the Covid pandemic.
He was then 85 years old, so he chose to dedicate himself to cultivating the field and gardens of his farm together with his wife, Lucía Topolansky, the former Tupamara and political prey that, like Mujica, became one of the most important leaders in the country. In addition to being a senator, in 2017 he became the first woman to occupy the vice presidency in Uruguay.
But the former president never moved away from public life. Whether it was through international interviews or trips, especially in Latin America, it continued to be one of the most attractive and respected political characters in the region.
Source: Current RT
