Uruguay ex-president José 'Pepe' Mujica dead at 89

Former Uruguay president Jose 'Pepe' Mujica has died at the age of 89 after losing his battle with cancer, the government in Montevideo confirmed Tuesday.

"With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend," the country's serving head of state Yamandú Orsi said on X.

Orsi, a long-time ally and considered Mujica’s political heir, added: “Thank you for everything you gave us, and for your deep love for your people.”

Mujica, an icon of the Latin American progressive left, had been in fragile health following a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer with liver metastasis in 2024.

In January, the left-wing leader announced that the disease had spread and that he would not undergo invasive treatment. “This time, I think the grim reaper is coming with a scythe,” he said with characteristic black humour.

He was in a "terminal" phase and receiving palliative care, his wife Lucía Topolansky said on Monday. The left-wing leader was being made as comfortable "as possible" in the final stage of his life, she told a local radio station.

Mujica, who became a global cult figure due in part to his austere lifestyle, lived on a small farm in the Rincón del Cerro district and rejected a move to the presidential residence. He donated most of his salary and continued driving an old Volkswagen Beetle throughout his presidency from 2010 to 2015.

The former guerrilla was dubbed “the world’s poorest president” by international media and earned admiration for his ideological consistency, anti-consumerist stance and personal humility.

He gained international recognition as a voice of "common-sense progressivism" and moral clarity, even among opponents.

On his watch, Uruguay legalised abortion and same-sex marriage and, in 2013, became the first country in the world to allow the regulated sale and use of recreational cannabis.

His government also welcomed Syrian refugees and sought to make Uruguay a model of inclusive development.

Mujica was a member of the leftist Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros (MLN-T), a guerrilla group that waged an armed insurgency in the 1960s and 1970s.

He went underground in 1969 and was one of 111 political prisoners who escaped in a mass jailbreak in 1971.

Captured again during the military dictatorship that followed the 1973 coup, he spent 14 years in prison – much of it in solitary confinement under inhumane conditions.

The experience left a lasting mark on both his worldview and public image.

After a 1985 amnesty that followed the return to democracy, Mujica entered parliamentary politics and became the first Tupamaro to be elected to Uruguay’s Congress in 1995.

He later served as agriculture minister under Tabaré Vázquez before winning the Presidency himself in 2009, defeating Luis Lacalle Pou – the son of a former president who later when on to serve as head of state.

In 2020, Mujica formally retired from active politics, stepping down from the Senate. "I haven’t cultivated hatred in my garden for decades. Hatred destroys us," he said in his farewell speech.

"I have been with him for more than 40 years, and I will be until the end; that is what I promised," Topolansky, a former senator and fellow ex-guerrilla, said in her final public comments before his death.

“Triumph in life is not about winning,” Mujica once said. “It is about getting up every time you fall.”

His legacy – poised between revolutionary defiance and democratic moderation – cements his place as one of the most emblematic political figures of 21st-century Latin America.

– TIMES/AFP/NA