( Spanish) – In full recovery from radiotherapy treatment for esophageal cancer, the former president of Uruguay José “Pepe” Mujica prioritized the pre-election campaign, gave interviews and participated in several events asking for the vote for his “political son”, the center-left candidate Yamandú Orsi, because, as he has said in numerous interviews, for him, “politics is a passion.”
“Politics is a passion. You have it or you don’t have it,” he said in one of the many interviews he gave during the last weeks of the electoral campaign, on the program Nothing to Lose, on radio M24. For this reason, during the last weeks of the race, the former president participated in mateadas, talks and political events of the Frente Amplio, asking to vote for Orsi, a former history professor and former mayor of the department of Canelones, who is active in the same political sector.
Before the first electoral round, at the closing ceremony of his sector, the Popular Participation Movement (MPP), Mujica was present, walking with difficulty, to give his message: “I am an old man who is very close to undertaking the retreat from where there is no return, but I am happy because you are there, because when my arms leave there will be thousands of arms replacing the fight and all my life I said that the best leaders are those who leave a bar that surpasses them with an advantage.
And that has been a recurring message from the former president – described by many during his term as “the poorest president in the world” for his austere life on a farm on the outskirts of Montevideo: leaving a political legacy behind him. “I am going to die happy, not to die, but to leave a bar (group) that surpasses me with an advantage,” he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País.
In that sense, one of his greatest political pride is precisely Orsi, who faces the official candidate from the center-right, Álvaro Delgado. In one of the political events in which he participated, in the week before the runoff, Mujica described Orsi as “a magician” and a great “negotiator.” A virtue very highlighted by its allies, in a context of a divided parliament, in which the Frente Amplio has achieved a majority in the Senate in October, but not in the Chamber of Deputies.
However, Mujica’s participation and statements were not without controversy. In an interview, he described senator-elect Blanca Rodríguez as his “backup” plan in case vice presidential candidate Carolina Cosse did not accept the nomination. This sparked criticism from the opposition and Orsi himself. “I don’t share it, like so many things I haven’t shared about the old man,” said the presidential candidate.
Shortly after, Mujica described as “miserable” the politicians who “like a lot of money.” He said that “politics and making money must be separated” and criticized President Luis Lacalle Pou for having bought “a $50,000 motorcycle.” This led Orsi to distance himself from his political mentor again and declare that “everyone spends their money as they want.” “There are people who spend it on something else, solve it in another way. The president once said that he had a standard of living to maintain, and I respect that,” he told reporters.
Lacalle Pou referred to Mujica’s criticism, saying that “turning up the volume” of the statements does not help and pointed out that it was necessary to “manage emotions” around the runoff.
Days later, on Wednesday the 20th, Mujica apologized for that message. “My tongue ran out, due to fever. And I apologize to the Uruguayan people, not for the content, I subscribe to the content, but for the form,” he said in an interview with radio Sarandí.
That did not stop him from continuing to campaign until just before the ban: “You can influence with your vote, you cannot be neutral (…) It is a problem of realizing that we have to get out of this hole in which we have gotten ourselves,” he told the newspaper El Observador.
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