Thousands of Uruguayans lined the streets of Montevideo Wednesday to bid farewell to deceased former leader Jose “Pepe” Mujica, famed for his humility and once known as the “world’s poorest president.”
The 89-year-old erstwhile leftist guerrilla, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost a year-long battle against cancer on Tuesday.
He passed away at his humble home on a small farm on the outskirts of the Uruguayan capital with his wife, fellow revolutionary fighter Lucia Topolansky, by his side.
Topolansky, 80, and President Yamandu Orsi, Mujica’s political heir, on Wednesday led a funeral procession with the former leader’s coffin, draped in the Uruguayan flag, on a simple horse-drawn carriage.
The cortege made its way to loud applause from the presidential headquarters to the legislative palace, where Mujica will lie in state.
“Thank you, Pepe,” some people shouted as the procession passed them.
Others wept.
Mujica, known for his anti-consumerist stance, represented “the struggle… to help those most in need,” Solana Lozano, a 46-year-old doctor, tearfully told AFP.
Some mourners waved banners reading “Hasta siempre, Pepe” (Until Forever, Pepe), a slogan associated with Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara.
Orsi has announced three days of national mourning.
– ‘Like ordinary people’ –
Mujica earned the moniker “world’s poorest president” during his 2010-2015 presidency for giving away much of his salary to charity, driving himself in a sky blue Volkswagen Beetle, and continuing to live a simple life with his wife and three-legged dog.
Leftist leaders from across Latin America and Europe have paid tribute to the man described by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as an “example for Latin America and the entire world.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Mujica’s “human greatness transcended the borders of Uruguay and his presidential mandate.”
Lula said he would travel to Montevideo for the funeral.
Mujica transformed Uruguay, a prosperous country of 3.4 million people best known for football and ranching, into one of Latin America’s most progressive societies.
He legalized abortion and gay marriage and made Uruguay the first country to allow the use of recreational cannabis.
In Montevideo, people recalled a man who practiced what he preached.
“He felt and lived like ordinary people, not like today’s politicians,” said Walter Larus, a waiter at a corner cafe in Montevideo of which Mujica was a patron.
“He was a man who dedicated his life to the cause of the poor,” added Mauro de los Reyes, a 50-year-old teacher.
In the 1960s, Mujica co-founded the Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla movement Tupamaros, which started out robbing from the rich to give to the poor but later escalated its campaign to kidnappings, bombings and assassinations.
He sustained multiple gunshot wounds, took part in a mass prison breakout and spent all of Uruguay’s 1973-1985 dictatorship in prison — much of it in solitary confinement. He was also tortured.
After his release, he founded the MPP, the largest party in Uruguay’s ruling leftist Broad Front coalition.
He was agriculture minister in the first left-wing government and then served a single term as president, in keeping with Uruguay’s constitution.
As president, he was praised for his fight against poverty but criticized for failing to rein in public spending.
He and Topolansky had no children.