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

Can our naija leaders ever live this kind of life?

mods, front-page pls.

His choice!!! he is a wealthy man already