{"id":423673,"date":"2024-11-30T10:39:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T10:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=423673"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Iconic-Uruguayan-ex-leader-hails-country-s-swing-left-as-farewell-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Iconic-Uruguayan-ex-leader-hails-country-s-swing-left-as-farewell-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Iconic Uruguayan ex-leader hails country’s swing left as ‘farewell gift’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uruguay’s ex-president Jose Mujica, who at 89 is an icon for leftists across Latin America, hailed the return of the left to power in his country’s weekend elections as a “farewell gift.”<\/p>\n

The ailing former guerrilla fighter — dubbed the world’s “poorest president” due to his humble lifestyle while in power — campaigned for president-elect Yamandu Orsi while recovering from esophageal cancer.<\/p>\n

Orsi’s win, he told AFP, was “something of a reward for me at the end of my career.”<\/p>\n

“It has something of a pleasant taste, a bit like a farewell gift,” he said in an interview late Thursday at his home down a dirt track in the countryside outside Uruguay’s capital Montevideo.<\/p>\n

Mujica became a standard-bearer for the global left during his 2010-2015 rule because of his modest lifestyle and progressive social policies.<\/p>\n

On a continent that has seen generations of flamboyant strongman leaders, corruption scandals and human rights abuses, he gave away most of his salary, drove himself around in a Volkswagen Beetle, and made Uruguay the first country in the world to fully legalize cannabis for recreational use.<\/p>\n

Orsi, a former history teacher seen as Mujica’s understudy, won back the presidency for the leftist Broad Front coalition in Sunday’s election run-off, ending five years of center-right rule.<\/p>\n

Uruguay is one of several South American countries to have swung left in recent years, along with Brazil, Chile and Colombia.<\/p>\n

The leaders of those countries are struggling with how to respond to the growing authoritarianism of the leftist presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua.<\/p>\n

“Authoritarianism in Latin America is a step backwards,” Mujica said.<\/p>\n

But he insisted with regard to the embattled sanctions-hit regime of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro: “Venezuela’s problems must be resolved by Venezuelans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In any case, they must be helped. But not interfered with.”<\/p>\n

Maduro has struggled to win support from key fellow left-wing Latin American leaders — including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — for his claim to have won a third six-year term in hotly-disputed July 28 elections.<\/p>\n

The 62-year-old socialist strongman has defied domestic and international calls to produce detailed election results to back his assertion.<\/p>\n

The United States has recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela’s “president-elect” on the basis of results published by the opposition from over 80 percent of polling stations.<\/p>\n

ad-ml-mar\/cb\/sms<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Uruguay’s former President (2010-2015) Jose Mujica gestures during an AFP interview at his house in Montevideo on November 28, 2024.<\/p>\n

-Eitan ABRAMOVICH
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uruguay’s ex-president Jose Mujica, who at 89 is an icon for leftists across Latin America,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}