José “Pepe” Mujica died on Tuesday at age 89. The news, confirmed by the president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, did not completely surprise: his health status had deteriorated in recent months. But it hurt the same. Mujica was one of those characters that seemed eternal. “I arrived here,” he said in January, with the clarity with which he lived and spoke all his life. And although he knew the end approached, it was not easy to leave. It was never. Nor that time when he survived six shots. Nor during the ten years that was imprisoned in inhuman conditions, confined for long periods in a dungeon of just one square meter. Not to go crazy, domesticated frogs, feed the mice and spoke with themselves. From there he left without hate. He came out with an idea: not living to collect accounts, but to serve.
His political life began in hiding and ended up being president. He was the leader of the Tupamaros, prisoner, fugitive, senator, Minister of Livestock and Head of the State. It was not a conversion. It was a transit. From the rifle to the seat. Of resistance to democracy. And in all those papers, Mujica was always the same: austere, coherent, brutally honest. Uruguay ruled between 2010 and 2015 and turned his little farm into Rincón del Cerro in a global symbol of politics without privileges.
A policy with your feet on the ground
He refused to live in the presidential residence, donated much of his salary and continued to conduct his old Volkswagen Beetle of 1987. He received world leaders with a mate in his hand and a three -legged dog hovering around the patio. His style was rude, direct, devoid of useless rhetoric. “They say I’m a poor president. Poor are the ones who need a lot,” he said once. Mujica embodied a philosophy that bothered many: to live with little, speak clearly and govern without lying.
His legacy as president is marked by laws that placed Uruguay on the map of progressive democracies. He legalized same -sex marriage, decriminalized abortion in the first twelve weeks and turned Uruguay into the first country in the world to regulate the production and sale of cannabis from the State. These reforms were not born from the whim or the militant ideology, but of a practical conviction: that the State should guarantee rights and treat citizens as adults.
In the economic, his government maintained the stability he had inherited from the Frente Amplio, but reinforced the social profile of Uruguayan politics. Unemployment dropped, reduced poverty and promoted foreign investment. Even so, he was the first to admit that he did not achieve everything he proposed. “Education beat me,” he acknowledged in several interviews, referring to his frustration with the reform of the public system. That ability to assume errors in public is another of the reasons why his figure generated respect even among his critics.
Reactions from all corners
His death has caused a wave of condolence messages that, beyond the protocol, reflect the symbolic dimension that Mujica reached. From the regional left, the answer has been choral and deeply emotional. The Brazilian Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described him as “a great friend and one of the main architects of Latin America integration.” The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, wrote: “Pepe dear, I imagine you are worried about the bitter salad that is today in the world. But if you left us something it was the incombustible hope that it is possible to do things better.”
In Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner referred to him as “a great man who dedicated his life to militancy and his homeland.” His successor, Alberto Fernández, said: “It was an example of austerity in a society that rewards those who knead fortunes.” From Colombia, Gustavo Petro – Exguerrillero as Mujica – fired him with a phrase full of ideology and admiration: “I hope Latin America, one day, has anthem. Mujica was a great revolutionary who understood that peace was the most important thing.”
In Spain, reactions have crossed ideological lines. Pedro Sánchez wrote: “A better world; in that he believed, militated and lived Pepe Mujica. Politics makes sense when it lives, from the heart.” Yolanda Díaz shared an image with him and described him as “strength and hope.” Irene Montero, from the European Parliament, published an appointment of Mujica himself: “I was crushed, defeated, sprayed, but I still dream that it is worth fighting so that people can live a little better.” Even from the right, Alberto Núñez Feijóo remembered him with respect: “From the ideological discrepancy, I will always say that he was a cordial and hospitable person. My condolences to the family and friends of Pepe Mujica.”
This range of reactions says more than any biography: Mujica, without ever giving up their ideas, achieved what very few politicians in life – and even less in death -: the sincere recognition of their adversaries.
The man who did not want bronze
In 2018 he retired from active politics. He delivered his seat in the Senate with a letter in which he wrote: “I feel that the wear of the years weighs me, and the reason is the tiredness of the long trip.” When he learned that he had cancer, he promised to “give battle.” But the treatment was devastating. He had few strength left, and he didn’t want to use them to resist. He said goodbye without looking for tributes. “Honestly, I’m dying. And the warrior has the right to his rest,” Search told the weekly. His last desire was to be buried in his farm, along with his dog Manuela, under a secuoya planted in 2018. He did not want speeches. No pomp. “And that’s it,” he said. This is how the cycle closed.
He wanted him to remember him for what he was. Not for the myth. And yet, he left one. He left the idea that another type of policy is possible. That honesty is not a moral attribute but a government tool. That sobriety is not poverty, but freedom. “Life is the adventure of the molecules,” he said once. “We come out of nowhere and go to nothing. All we have is this time. And it is worth living with meaning.”
