José Mujica
José "Pepe" Mujica was a Uruguayan politician who served as the 40th President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, and one of the most genuinely remarkable political figures of the modern era. A former guerrilla fighter who spent fourteen years as a political prisoner, much of it in solitary confinement, Mujica emerged to become a leader famous for donating 90% of his presidential salary to charity while living with his wife on a small flower farm outside Montevideo — and for a presidency that produced some of the most progressive legislation of any government in the world.
Guerrilla Fighter and Political Prisoner
Born José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano on May 20, 1935, in Montevideo, Uruguay, he grew up in a modest working-class family and became politically active in his youth, joining eventually the Tupamaros — the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional — a left-wing urban guerrilla movement that conducted bank robberies, kidnappings, and political violence in Uruguay during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was shot six times during police encounters and escaped from prison twice before being captured for a final time in 1972.
The military dictatorship that took power in 1973 held Mujica in isolation for a total of fourteen years, much of it in solitary confinement at the bottom of an old well. His time in isolation, he later said, forced him into a profound internal life — philosophical, stoical, at peace with his own company — that permanently shaped his character and his subsequent political philosophy. He was released in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy and immediately entered mainstream democratic politics.
The Presidency and the World's Poorest President
Mujica served in Uruguay's Senate and as Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries before winning the presidency in 2009. His administration is remarkable in modern political history by any measure. He donated approximately 90% of his $12,000 monthly salary to housing programs and small entrepreneurs, keeping only what he said a Uruguayan pensioner would have — around $1,250 per month. He continued to live on his wife's small farm, drove a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle, and declined to occupy the presidential palace. He dismissed this as simple consistency: "I'm called 'the poorest president,' but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more."
Under his presidency, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalize and regulate recreational marijuana (2013), legalised same-sex marriage, and expanded access to abortion. These were not concessions to pressure but initiatives he drove. His foreign policy was characterized by principled non-alignment, and his speeches at the United Nations became famous for their frank, philosophical denunciations of consumer capitalism — delivered in the plain language of a man who genuinely lived what he preached.
Did You Know?
When offered $1 million for his old Volkswagen Beetle after a photo of him driving it became globally viral, Mujica declined. He kept the car. He later received an offer from an unidentified bidder for $1.5 million, which he also refused, saying the car was not for sale at any price because he needed it to get around.
Final Years and Death
After leaving the presidency in 2015, Mujica returned to the Senate as an elder statesman and spokesman for the Latin American left. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2024 and announced publicly that he would not seek further treatment, approaching his illness with the same equanimity he had applied to solitary imprisonment. He died on May 13, 2025, aged eighty-nine, at his farm outside Montevideo. World leaders and ordinary people from across the political spectrum paid tribute to a figure who had proved that power need not corrupt and principles need not be abandoned when they become inconvenient. His book of speeches and reflections, The World According to Mujica , collects his major public addresses.