It’s
a common grumble that politicians’ lifestyles are far removed from
those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president – who
lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay.
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 may appear to be an eccentric old man … But this is a free choice.”
“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.
All the president’s wealth is a 1987 VW Beetle.
In 2010, his annual personal wealth declaration –
mandatory for officials in Uruguay – was $1,800 (£1,100), the value of
his 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.
This year, he added half of his wife’s assets – land, tractors and a house – reaching $215,000 (£135,000).
That’s still only about two-thirds of Vice-President
Danilo Astori’s declared wealth, and a third of the figure declared by
Mujica’s predecessor as president, Tabare Vasquez.
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.
Those years in jail, Mujica says, helped shape his outlook on life.
“I’m called ‘the poorest president’, but I don’t feel
poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive
lifestyle, and always want more and more,” he says.
“This is a matter of freedom. If you don’t have many
possessions then you don’t need to work all your life like a slave to
sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself,” he says.
“I may appear to be an eccentric old man. But this is a free choice.”
The Uruguayan leader made a similar point when he
addressed the Rio+20 summit in June this year: “We’ve been talking all
afternoon about sustainable development. To get the masses out of
poverty.
“But what are we thinking? Do we want the model of
development and consumption of the rich countries? I ask you now: what
would happen to this planet if Indians would have the same proportion of
cars per household than Germans? How much oxygen would we have left?
“Does this planet have enough resources so seven or
eight billion can have the same level of consumption and waste that
today is seen in rich societies? It is this level of hyper-consumption
that is harming our planet.”
Source: news.bbc.co.uk
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