[Andropov]

Who also happens to be the world's most badass president as well.

Laundry is strung outside the house. The water comes from a well in a yard, overgrown with weeds. Only two police officers and Manuela, a three-legged dog, keep watch outside.

This is the residence of the president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, whose lifestyle clearly differs sharply from that of most other world leaders.

President Mujica has shunned the luxurious house that the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders and opted to stay at his wife's farmhouse, off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo.

The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers.

This austere lifestyle - and the fact that Mujica donates about 90% of his monthly salary, equivalent to $12,000 (£7,500), to charity - has led him to be labelled the poorest president in the world.

"I've lived like this most of my life," he says, sitting on an old chair in his garden, using a cushion favoured by Manuela the dog.

"I can live well with what I have."

His charitable donations - which benefit poor people and small entrepreneurs - mean his salary is roughly in line with the average Uruguayan income of $775 (£485) a month.

Elected in 2009, Mujica spent the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Uruguayan guerrilla Tupamaros, a leftist armed group inspired by the Cuban revolution.

He was shot six times and spent 14 years in jail. Most of his detention was spent in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243493

He also wants to legalize weed (more info. found in the article).

Compare this to Michelle Obama's multi-million dollar shopping sprees and vacations. I'm pretty sure this is the single best leader on this planet. He should invade South America and establish a left-wing Hispanic super-state- I would move there and support the government 100%.

[Siberian Fox]

I read this on the BBC today also. For a modern politician to be giving away most of their salary to charity is highly unusual and certainly commendable. He could probably teach the austerity politicians in Europe a thing or two about leading by example.

[Goldberk]

Great story, people like him almost give me reason to support representative politics.

[Smertios]

To be honest, whether or not he donates his money to charity is irrelevant. While commendable, he does that privately, without affecting whether or not he is a good president. There are plenty of people who donate money to charity and are terrible leaders. And there are also good presidents that are terrible people and never help anyone.

However, I have to say that Mujica surprised me a lot. And he is actually being a great president to Uruguay. I supported Lacalle in 2009, as the "lesser evil". Lacalle was a corrupt conservative politician who had served as president before. Mujica was a former communist guerrilla member that could have ruined the country if he hadn't followed social-democratic policies. But well, I'm glad Lacalle didn't win. Mujica is being a great president, and Uruguay is in the right path right now. And that has absolutely nothing to do with how much assets he has...

[Social_Critic]

dilma, Humala and mujica are examples of former communists who seem to be closer to Obama than to Castro. I guess they saw what happened in china, USSR and Cuba and saw the light.

[Smertios]

Well, the case with Humala is a bit different. His 2006 presidential campaign was pretty scary. And the fact that his brothers and father were from the ethnocacerist movement doesn't help either. The mere fact that members of his family believe Native Americans are superior to other races and should be put in charge in Peru is worrying.

I think he adopted a different posture in 2011 mainly to attract the liberal vote. There was no way Peruvian liberals would be voting for Fujimori. And he knew that. Vargas Llosa said that he was supporting Humala as the lesser evil at first, then he got closer to Humala and changed his mind. He said that Humala had become less radical and started looking at Lula as a model.

I think Peru would have been better if Vargas Llosa had run and been elected, though. It's a shame he doesn't want to be involved in politics that deeply anymore.

As for Dilma, she surprised me just as much as Mujica. Brazil is a huge country, so the idea of her turning Brazil into a communist "paradise" was not worrying. Nobody would let her do that. But the fact that Lula chose someone completely unknown to pretty much everyone was. It was impossible to know for sure what she would do. But her government is definitely being better than Lula's, so it is a good thing.

[Figlio di Moros]

I read this on the BBC today also. For a modern politician to be giving away most of their salary to charity is highly unusual and certainly commendable. He could probably teach the austerity politicians in Europe a thing or two about leading by example.

Agreed- while I have no problem w/ properly compensating leaders or some luxury, I'm strongly against opulance and leaders themselves should be leading by example. After all, isn't that in the definition of a leader?

[Rainbow Crow]

Sounds like a really cool guy. What are his policies, though?

[Andropov]

He is for legalizing marijuana and served in a Marxist guerrilla group in his youth.

[Rainbow Crow]

I wonder how the President has time to cultivate flowers I wonder what his policies besides marijuana are like, since Uruguay is obviously a democracy and not communist but he's apparently from a communist background.

[Smertios]

I wonder how the President has time to cultivate flowers I wonder what his policies besides marijuana are like, since Uruguay is obviously a democracy and not communist but he's apparently from a communist background.

Mujica's communist past is related to the Cold War state of the region, with several liberal dictatorships in place. With redemocratization, many formerly communist guerrilla members adopted social democratic principles and became politicians, defending a democratic welfare state rather than a dictatorship of the proletariat. This was the case for José Mujica, Dilma Rousseff and many other politicians who did not become presidents.

[Social_Critic]

I think Mujica is more focused on economic development and generating exports. Today he's in Caracas making sure Uruguay will keep selling chicken to Venezuelal.

. Uruguay is to pay with food a portion of a huge debt owed to Venezuela on account of oil shipments under an agreement to be signed next week during the visit of Uruguayan President José Mujica to Caracas, official sources confirmed on Thursday.

Sources of the Uruguayan Foreign Office told Efe that the agreement forms part of several similar deals already existent between the two countries and also proves a "fluid and constant" relationship.

Daily newspaper La República mentioned that the agreement would allow the export to Venezuela of about 100,000 tons of wheat, a similar amount of rice and 500,000 tons of chicken. It is "a great sale" to be paid with the oil bill.

Venezuela has credits on its behalf for the oil sent to Uruguay since 2005.

http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/111 ... -venezuela

Unfortunately to boost chicken sales he has to provide cover for te usurpation of power taking place today, which turns Venezuela into a dictatorship.

[KlassWar]

Unfortunately to boost chicken sales he has to provide cover for te usurpation of power taking place today, which turns Venezuela into a dictatorship.

There is no usurpation: The Left won the elections and they fair and square and they ain't gonna let some bourgeois gusano return to power, even if a few laws have to be broken to avoid it. Deal with it.


As for Mújica, why would he not support other Leftist presidents in Latin-America? Shouldn't any leftist Latin American leader want a block of solidly left wing regimes around?

[Rugoz]

Wow, somehow I didn't realize he's the president of URUGUAY!

Incredible.

[Social_Critic]

Klass War, "the left" didn't win the elections. The winner was Hugo Chavez. Mr Chavez was wrong about his medical condition, or he was lied to by his medical team in Cuba. So as it turns out the PSUV ran a candidate with metastatic sarcoma.

Because the winer is either dying or already dead, the Usurpers decided to create a fiction, that Chavez is in condition to rule from a Cuban hospital. This fiction is already crumbling, and pressure has been brought to bear on the Usurpers to proceed with the creation of a medical commission that will declare Chavez unfit to serve. Elections will follow if they obey the Venezuelan constitution. If they do not they will be a dictatorship.

Mr Mujica will make a serious gaffe if he endorses the ongoing coup. He'll be seen as a cynical parasite whose main interest is to sell chickens.

[KlassWar]

Klass War, "the left" didn't win the elections. The winner was Hugo Chavez. Mr Chavez was wrong about his medical condition, or he was lied to by his medical team in Cuba. So as it turns out the PSUV ran a candidate with metastatic sarcoma.

Because the winer is either dying or already dead, the Usurpers decided to create a fiction, that Chavez is in condition to rule from a Cuban hospital. This fiction is already crumbling, and pressure has been brought to bear on the Usurpers to proceed with the creation of a medical commission that will declare Chavez unfit to serve. Elections will follow if they obey the Venezuelan constitution. If they do not they will be a dictatorship.

Mr Mujica will make a serious gaffe if he endorses the ongoing coup. He'll be seen as a cynical parasite whose main interest is to sell chickens.

It's not like they want to confirm a dictator as a president-for-life. PSUV has to settle on a candidate and set up their propaganda machine to win the next election, since Chavez ain't getting better. They need to make a public show of unity between their authoritarian populist, social-democrat and Marxist wings, rouse up the base on a continuing comrade Chavez's project campaign, that kinda thing.

It'll probably take PSUV a month or two to set up. Most likely they're trying to hold off calling the new elections until they've managed to secure a factional agreement or hold a party congress. They need to do this, because division in the ranks would deliver the Presidency to that bourgeois worm Capriles, and all the achievements of the Chavista project would go down the drain. they can get Parliament, the Government and the Supreme Court to OK an extraordinary procedure to swear in the president or have one of his senior Party officials elected to high State office take over temporarily, until they're in a position to call for new elections.

They can't let the Right win without a fight, so now they need a stalling tactic. It's not the end of the world, Social_Critic. If it goes smoothly they won't even have to overthrow the Republic.

[Social_Critic]

Why don't you take this comment and start a new thread in the Latin American forum, call it - Suggested PSUV (Communist) Strategy to Retain Power or something like that. We're hijacking the Mujica thread.

I'll keep on writing about events as they unfold in my "Venezuela/Chavez Update". You may want to check it before you go off and write because you do lack background info. I, on the other hand, lived in Venezuela for many years, and I lived in Cuba when I was young, so I'm sharp as a razor compared to most PoFo participants. You may say that, for some events, I'm a primary source because i was there. But you won't get me to say who I am.

[Smertios]

As for Mújica, why would he not support other Leftist presidents in Latin-America? Shouldn't any leftist Latin American leader want a block of solidly left wing regimes around?

You mean in elections? Its not seen as ethical, mostly. Even Chavez stated in 2010 that he was not going to publicly support any candidates in Brazil, because it wouldn't be nice, but that it was obvious he had a preference (which everyone knew).

If you mean post-elections, he supports all presidents in Latin America, left or right, as long as they were democratically elected. It's not in Uruguay's interest to stop relations with Chile, for example, just because they have a conservative president... As Mujica himself said when Venezuela was accepted as a full member in Mercosul, it would be stupid not to accept Venezuela as a member because of Chavez, as governments come and go, but the country (and its economy) remains...

[KlassWar]

You mean in elections? Its not seen as ethical, mostly. Even Chavez stated in 2010 that he was not going to publicly support any candidates in Brazil, because it wouldn't be nice, but that it was obvious he had a preference (which everyone knew).

If you mean post-elections, he supports all presidents in Latin America, left or right, as long as they were democratically elected. It's not in Uruguay's interest to stop relations with Chile, for example, just because they have a conservative president... As Mujica himself said when Venezuela was accepted as a full member in Mercosul, it would be stupid not to accept Venezuela as a member because of Chavez, as governments come and go, but the country (and its economy) remains...

Let's be blunt: It's not done overtly, mostly because elected officials fear a deep freeze in diplomatic relations should their chosen candidate fail to get in government. But the Chavistas can keep power in Venezuela, democratically or otherwise, so that's not really a concern. The only backlash that Mujica might get by fully backing the Chavistas, even on a coup, is hatred from right-wingers who probably hate'im anyway and whose opinions, frankly, shouldn't ever matter to someone in the Left.

[Social_Critic]

Chavez does it sloppy. The money in suitcases sent to Argentina is an example.

I don't think the Chavistas will have much time in power if they keep going this way. Lets recall that these regimes fall in time. Given their sheer lack of management skills, they won't have much Venezuela left to rule soon. They are already having food shortages, and the flight of the middle class has just started in earnest. In five years, they'll be like the Cubans under Castro: miserable, abused, badly dressed, skinny, and ready to kill their rulers. The wheel turns.

What saddens me about Mujicas attitude is the fact that he can sell lots of chickens now, whether he sucks up or he doesn't. Later, when the Venezuelan economy is in ruins, he won't be selling chickens at all.