El Pepe

Foundation for Economic Freedom ^ | Sunday, May 25, 2025 | Martín Aguirre

[E. Pluribus Unum]

How José Mujica charmed, fooled, and shaped a nation.

José Mujica, Uruguay’s guerrilla-turned-president-turned-political-popstar, passed away on May 13. Trying to explain him to anyone living outside Uruguay can be a challenge, because Mujica was a completely Uruguayan character.

Let me illustrate. Uruguay is a country with two souls. One, urban, middle-class, socialist, with mostly European descent, and cosmopolitan pretentions that are impossible to fulfill in a country of 3 million people on the outskirts of Latin America. That’s mostly the capital, Montevideo, where half of the population lives. The other half lives in what is generally called “the countryside,” though the bulk of it resides in small towns scattered in a territory smaller than South Dakota. And its people, though ethnically similar, have a very different approach to life and politics. They are more individualistic, suspicious of government reach, linked to extensive farming production, and tend to vote conservative options. Comparisons to Texas have been made.

Mujica was a very peculiar, and some would say fabricated, mix of these two worlds. Worlds that since the country’s birth have clashed relentlessly, in a political power struggle that involved outright civil war throughout the 19th century. After that, the struggle “civilized” mostly, and the country had a period of economic flourishing that created the most equal and democratic society on the continent. Until Mujica and his friends, dazzled by the Cuban Revolution and frustrated by a period of economic stagnation, launched a guerrilla uprising that ended with them in prison for a decade, and the country in a military dictatorship.

After his release from prison, pardoned by a law passed by the same political enemies he had fought a decade before, Mujica starred in one of the most amazing—and some would say Hollywood-worthy—redemption stories in continental politics. He was the man that pushed...

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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

[Orosius]

What’s up in Uruguay now?

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[higgmeister]

More than twenty-five years ago at a Libertarian Party Convention in Atlanta I met and talked for a long time with Larry Reed, now FEE's President Emeritus.   He had a card table with FEE pamphlets he was attempting to give out.   The Convention business was going on, when I walked outside into the hallway, there he was all by himself.   He was an interesting guy.

[The Duke]

Uruguay seems to be the “safe banking” option for South America. At least that’s the impression that I got from my former Argentinean employees. It’s where they keep their bank accounts (this was 20 years ago - seems like yesterday).