Uruguay<\/a>\u00a0enjoyed enlightened social legislation, with eight-hour working days and maternity leave: some called it the Switzerland of Latin America. It even won the World Cup in 1930 and 1950, though its population has never gone above 3.5 million. But as Mujica grew up, the miracle began to collapse.<\/p>\nAs a young man, Mujica went to work for Enrique Erro, a popular leftwing politician, but had a political epiphany when he met Ch\u00e9 Guevara in post-revolutionary Cuba.<\/p>\n
As much of Latin America fell victim to crisis and decline, it was a Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano, who penned a new bible for the continent\u2019s left wing, The Open Veins of Latin America.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret,\u201d Galeano wrote, in 1971. \u201cEvery year, without making a sound, three Hiroshima bombs explode over communities that have become accustomed to suffering with clenched teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Uruguay suffering rampant inflation and a stagnant economy, Mujica and his comrades decided to follow Cuba\u2019s example, destroying the old order and trying something new \u2013 though it was never clear what that should be.’<\/p>\n
Uruguay had no mountains to hide in, with the city of Montevideo dominating a fertile plain full of sheep and white-faced Hereford cattle, so they became urban guerrillas, taking their name from an 18th-century Peruvian rebel, T\u00fapac Amaru II.<\/p>\n
The Tupamaros were a broad movement \u2013 one section was led by a priest \u2013 and unafraid of experiments, even costly ones. Trial and error, rather than dogma, would mark their history. It still does.<\/p>\n
They soon gained a reputation for daring theatrics. A raid on the town of Pando saw them ride down the main street disguised as a funeral procession. After a heist at the Casino San Rafael in Punta del Este, a plush resort town, they sent back the employees\u2019 pool of tips.<\/p>\n
Time magazine dubbed them \u201cthe Robin Hood guerillas\u201d. But people with guns end up using them. Six people died in the Pando raid. In March 1970, Mujica was identified by a policeman in a bar. El Pepe drew his pistol: two police officers were wounded, and Mujica was shot six times.<\/p>\n
He was sent to Punta Carretas jail \u2013 which would later be turned into a glitzy mall looking out over the River Plate from Montevideo\u2019s southernmost point. Mujica broke out of it twice.<\/p>\n
Impressionable teenagers like Mannise joined student demonstrations, hurling stones at the police as protest spread across what had long been regarded as the region\u2019s most tranquil and moderate country.<\/p>\n
Then it all went wrong. Kidnappings, bombings and cold-blooded executions left the Tupamaros\u2019 romantic reputation in tatters. The army was called in and, in under a year, the Tupas were annihilated.<\/p>\n
Mujica was one of the last to be caught, in August 1972, while sleeping rough with an Uzi machine-gun and a grenade under his coat. In June 1973, an authoritarian cattle-rancher president, Juan Mar\u00eda Bordaberry of the Colorado party, led a civilian-military coup, closing down democracy.<\/p>\n
Many blamed the Tupamaros.<\/strong><\/p>\nNine Tupamaro leaders were removed from their prison cells and sent to army camps as hostages \u2013 to be killed if the group sprung back to life. The poet, novelist, and playwright Mauricio Rosencof spent 11 years in a tiny cell next to Mujica.<\/p>\n
For many years, Rosencof told me, the hostages could only communicate by tapping morse code on their cell walls. Allowed to use the toilet just once a day, they urinated into their water bottles, allowing the sediment to settle and drinking the rest \u2013 because water was also scarce. It was even worse for Mujica, whose bullet wounds had seriously damaged his guts.<\/p>\n
Solitary confinement drove them half-mad. Pepe became convinced that a bugging device was hidden in the ceiling. Its imaginary static deafened him. \u201cHe would put stones in his mouth to stop himself from screaming,\u201d Rosencof, now 81, told me.<\/p>\n
Mujica fought to obtain the one item he needed most \u2013 a potty. Hostages were allowed occasional family visits, so\u00a0Do\u00f1a<\/em>\u00a0Lucy brought him one, but the guards refused to give it to him.<\/p>\nOne day, when his jailers held a party, Mujica began to scream for it; the commandant, embarrassed in front of his guests, relented. Mujica clung to his sole possession, a symbol of victory over his jailers, each time they were moved to a new army camp. \u201cHe refused to scrub it clean,\u201d Rosencof recalled. \u201cWe all have tics left from that time. When Pepe came out, he came with all that baggage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three<\/strong><\/p>\nThe main road leading out of Montevideo towards Mujica\u2019s chacra, or smallholding, takes you through industrial suburbs, over a polluted river and past flat expanses of small, squat homes. They are poor, but not decrepit.<\/p>\n
There are relatively few signs of the aching poverty that afflicts other parts of Latin America, though a developing world debt crisis drove many to penury at the beginning of this century. Old nags are tethered to the roadside, nibbling at the wide green verges.<\/p>\n
A rough, hand-painted sign on a tin shack beside a potholed asphalt road points to the dirt track leading to the farm. An excited pack of dogs rushes out to meet visitors, then rushes back to chase a van delivering gas bottles.<\/p>\n
Cocks crow and partridges strut through nearby fields, food for stealthy farm cats. Men in white rubber boots cut chard in a field belonging to the farm.<\/p>\nMujica on the day of his release from prison in 1985.\u00a0Photograph: Agencia Camaratres\/AFP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMujica emerged from his tiny house dressed in a fawn fleece and grey trousers with sandals over socked feet. The fleece is an improvement, which can be credited to his 2009 campaign team, who weaned him off tattered jumpers.<\/p>\n
Age has made his features both more pinched around the eyes and fleshier around the edges; his thick shock of greying hair was neatly brushed \u2013 another habit he acquired while running for president. Manuela, a three-legged mutt, hopped gamely along.<\/p>\n
The one-story house lies half-hidden by greenery, its corrugated metal roof resting on pillars around a narrow, cement walkway full of dusty crates and jars. Winter rain had highlighted the patchy plasterwork. \u201cMind the mud!\u201d the president warned by way of greeting.<\/p>\n
The narrow, elongated front room contains a cheap office chair and desk, bookshelves, a small table with two uncomfortable wood-backed chairs, a roaring log stove and an ancient, immaculately restored Peugeot bicycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had that bicycle for 60 years,\u201d he said proudly, recalling his days as an amateur racer. The other two rooms in the house are familiar to Uruguayans, who have seen them on YouTube: the president once showed a Korean television team his roughly made bed and the contents of an old refrigerator before inviting them to shots of Johnny Walker and Uruguayan cane spirit.<\/p>\n
Cobwebs, heavy with dead flies, hung above our heads. Mujica, sat stiff-legged on the office chair, easing his joints and ready for verbal combat.<\/p>\n
Mujica could live in the presidential palace, a hundred-year-old mansion in the old-money Prado district, but he would rather be here. \u201cWe think of it as a way of fighting for our personal freedom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you complicate your life too much in the material sense, a big part of your time goes to tending that. That\u2019s why we still live today as we did 40 years ago, in the same neighbourhood, with the same people and the same things. You don\u2019t stop being a common man just because you are president.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mujica has a mouth to match his rusticity. At a speech to trade unionists in Montevideo the previous day, the audience hung on for the quickfire, crude phrases that he claims to have picked up in jail. \u201cEs la joda<\/em>!\u201d \u2013 \u201cWhat the fuck!\u201d \u2013 provoked a squawk of delight from a woman behind me.<\/p>\n\u201cI know what our people are like,\u201d Mujica told me. \u201cSome more cultivated people have a stereotype and think\u00a0el se\u00f1or presidente<\/em>\u00a0has to be like a statue, totally inert. He cannot be like any other person. But I am an old man made of flesh and bones, with nerves and a heart. Yes, I put my foot in it a lot, but always in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI wasn\u2019t voted president because I had been a Tupamaro,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t do this sneakily, hiding my past.\u201d Even in his guerrilla days, he insists, he tried to keep violence to a minimum. He now professes a hatred for modern war, but also scorns \u201cbeatific pacifism\u201d, and refuses to express remorse for his own violent past.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only things I regret are those I could have done but didn\u2019t,\u201d he said. He doesn\u2019t hold on to old grudges \u2013 the men who jailed and tortured him, in his view, were instruments in other people\u2019s hands. In one of those contradictions thrown up by their participative democracy, Uruguayans voted to retain an amnesty law protecting many involved in state repression on the same day they picked Mujica for president. \u201cI suffered, but you can\u2019t hold on to hatred,\u201d he said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be the person I am if I hadn\u2019t lived through those years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fourteen other people live in small homes dotted around the\u00a0chacra<\/em>, many of them elderly. He does not charge rent. \u201cWe are a bit like an old folks\u2019 home,\u201d he said. At heart, he is still an anarchist \u2013 or, as he puts it, a leftwing libertarian. \u201cI am half, or even a lot, libertarian \u2013 as a dream, as a utopia. If ancient man could govern himself, then perhaps one day, in the future, men can govern themselves again.\u201d<\/p>\nAfter a lifetime of militancy, at the age of 79 he has found a way to balance his idealism with pragmatism, to the consternation of his critics on the left. \u201cA leftwing vision of the world requires you to imagine a future utopia, but one doesn\u2019t have the right to forget that the most important thing for every human being is the life they lead now,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fight to make today better must become your central task.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four<\/strong><\/p>\nA presidential sash with the pale blue and white stripes of Uruguay sits in a glass-topped box in Julio Mar\u00eda Sanguinetti\u2019s book-lined, sombre study in a house on a quiet street near Punta Carretas.<\/p>\n
Cufflinks, shiny blazer buttons and a pastel green silk tie bolster an image of muted, patrician sophistication. \u201cI am one of three Uruguayan presidents to have served two terms,\u201d he informed me as a retainer brought us coffee.<\/p>\n
His Colorado party has lost voters to Mujica\u2019s Broad Front coalition \u2013 which brings together ex-Tupamaros, socialists, communists and the country\u2019s left-leaning Christian Democrats. Sanguinetti is bemused and outraged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dictatorship turned the perpetrators into victims,\u201d he said. \u201cYet the dictatorship was triggered by the Tupamaros … all the shots Mujica fired were against democracy.\u201d Sanguinetti was banned from politics during the dictatorship, though he eventually helped negotiate its end in 1984.<\/p>\n
The hostages were released the following year, during his first presidency. By then Mujica had turned his potty into a tiny marigold garden. Rosencof recalls watching him step out of jail, proudly bearing his potty, and disappearing into a sea of flags waved by supporters.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>
Jos\u00e9 Mujica casts his vote during the presidential election in 2009.Photograph: Migual Rojo\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn the 1980s and 90s the governments led by Sanguinetti\u2019s Colorado party, and their traditional rivals, the National party, pursued a watered-down version of neoliberal reforms.<\/p>\n
Moderate Uruguayans did not want state companies privatised, at least not without proper guarantees, and said so at referendum; they are still in public hands.<\/p>\n
The Tupamaros, experimental as ever, saw no point in returning to violence, so they joined the Broad Front in 1989 and sniped at it from the left, warning against the evils of centrism. But many of them still believed that the rotten structure of neoliberal Latin America would collapse, and arms would be needed once more.<\/p>\n
Adolfo Garc\u00e9, a political scientist who has studied the Tupamaros\u2019 remarkable transition into electoral politics, told me that the old revolutionaries played a double game \u2013 participating in democracy while preparing to go back underground if necessary. \u201cIt can best be described as an organisation that was always ready to submerge and become clandestine,\u201d Garc\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n
Uruguayan elections are complex: voters don\u2019t simply select a party, but choose a faction within that party. They elect the two chambers of parliament, a president and, often, vote on referenda at the same time.<\/p>\n
In 1994, when the Broad Front came within a few points of winning an election, the Tupamaro-led faction was still a minor player, with only two deputies in the 99-seat parliament. But one of those was Mujica. He rode to parliament on a battered Vespa, wore everyday clothes and peppered his speech with slang. (\u201cHe thinks up clever phrases,\u201d Sanguinetti said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he has destroyed the language.\u201d) People learned that he lived in a tiny house on a\u00a0chacra<\/em>, that he grew flowers and didn\u2019t care about his appearance, his possessions, or whether he sounded like he was having a row at the counter of a Montevideo bar. Mujica the folk hero was born.<\/p>\nFive<\/strong><\/p>\nThe day Luc\u00eda was due to swear Pepe in as president, his publicist Pancho Vernazza had arranged to meet him at 8am to go over the speech. Vernazza, a high-powered Montevideo advertising executive, was a few minutes late, and found that an impatient Mujica had already wandered off.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d gone for a spin on his tractor,\u201d Vernazza told me. Mujica hired him for a presidential campaign that started with a fight to win the Broad Front nomination against a moderate social democrat, Danilo Astori \u2013 who would eventually become Mujica\u2019s vice-president, ensuring that his would be a business-friendly government.<\/p>\n
It was, Vernazza jokes, the meeting of a leftwing and a rightwing anarchist. Business acquaintances threatened to leave the country if Mujica won. \u201cIn 40 years of professional work, I\u2019ve never met anyone with his capacity to learn and be flexible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the least authoritarian of all the politicians I\u2019ve known.\u201d Vernazza also found him chaotic, unstructured and gaffe-ridden. But native political intelligence and a talent for improvisation saw him rapidly mutate from a rebel in ripped jerseys to a serious presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
They tried to make doubters less afraid of a man known for his bruising vocabulary and tousle-haired television outings without his false teeth. Above all, Pepe sold himself. The Tupamaros always had a keen marketing sense, and Mujica\u2019s flashes of roughhouse wit made perfect soundbites.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was trapped in his own stereotype,\u201d said Vernazza. \u201cSo he changed his personality, showing he was far more politically flexible than people had thought.\u201d The hair was brushed, and the teeth stayed in. Mujica became president, and his faction, led by Topolansky, became the largest component of the Broad Front.<\/p>\n
Mujica\u2019s progressive social reforms have boosted his global fame, but he is less impressed by them than his admirers. \u201cThey fit our sense of freedom and human rights, but they don\u2019t solve the basic problem, which is the difference of class,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Campaigners say he is not a natural social progressive. \u201cHe\u2019s a bit Cro-Magnon, really,\u201d said one sexual health activist, who is nevertheless grateful for a law legalising abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; V\u00e1zquez, a devout Roman Catholic, had vetoed a similar law during the previous Broad Front presidency. Sergio Miranda and Rodrigo Borda, the first gay couple to marry last year, do not give Mujica most of the credit.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people fought for this for many years,\u201d Miranda told me at the small offices of their gay tourism business. For his part, the president still refers to gays and lesbians as \u201csexually ambivalent\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we are doing is recognising something as old as humanity,\u201d Mujica said. \u201cThe best thing is that people can live as they want to live.\u201d He sees those twice punished by poverty and intolerance as the real victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who are sexually ambivalent have a real problem if they are poor. If they are rich they are tolerated. That sounds crude, but it\u2019s the truth as I see it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the women most discriminated against are those in poverty. Machismo hits hardest at the lowest levels. Poor girls are not well-treated by our society. There are women who end up abandoned with lots of children.<\/p>\n
For me that is one of the most important battles for fairness.\u201d During the presidential campaign he was caught moaning about \u201cintellectual women who think they are downtrodden\u201d, or who talk about their \u201ccompa\u00f1era<\/em>\u201d cleaning lady, \u201cwhen she is really the servant\u201d. Almost all of the 90% of his salary that Mujica gives away goes to single mothers.<\/p>\nMujica has never smoked marijuana, but he is addicted to tobacco: visitors have often found themselves sneaking a smoke with the president, who rushes to put out his cigarette at the sound of Luc\u00eda\u2019s car.<\/p>\n
\u201cProhibition has proved itself a splendid failure,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you want change, you can\u2019t carry on doing the same things. We opted for regulating the sale of marijuana and that, naturally, has to be done by the state. We want to take users out of hiding and create a situation where we can say: \u2018You are overdoing it. You have to deal with that.\u2019 It is a question of limits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties see an experiment that will blow up in the Broad Front\u2019s face at election time. Most Uruguayans dislike the law, and it will be struck out if V\u00e1zquez, who is standing again as a candidate, does not win next month\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n
The real reason for the marijuana law can be found near Mujica\u2019s birthplace in Paso de la Arena, where the asphalt turns to dirt and the houses are small and poor. Gangs of youths stand around in the dusk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is when the\u00a0pasta base<\/em>\u00a0kids appear,\u201d Walter Pernas, an investigative journalist and construction worker\u2019s son, explained as we bumped down backroads.\u00a0Pasta base<\/em>, a toxic product of the cocaine-purification process, with effects similar to crack cocaine, is spoiling Mujica\u2019s attempt to take people out of misery. It is arguably Uruguay\u2019s biggest social problem, exacerbating poverty and fuelling crime. More than 1% of Montevideans are users. That number rises in these poor, fringe barrios \u2013 where the\u00a0bocas<\/em>, or drug markets, start trading after dark. Mujica wants to take marijuana profits away from traffickers, while freeing up police resources. In a country with such dramatic economic growth, popular concern is no longer about jobs, poverty or the economy, but about violence, insecurity and\u00a0pasta base<\/em>.<\/p>\nThe president and his 25-year-old Volkswagen Beetle.\u00a0Photograph: Ricardo Ceppi\/Corbis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cIt is a lost generation. They are so brain-damaged that they can\u2019t even understand enough to keep a job,\u201d Pernas said. Fear of violence is real and growing. People who used to carry rubbish to the street bins at night now wait until morning. Once, poverty drove people to the bins to eat, and housewives carefully placed leftover food in separate bags. Now pasta-base addicts take them. Juan Abbate, the owner of the family bakery where Mujica worked as a boy, described how he had once been prevented from making a delivery by a gang of teenage pasta-base hoodlums.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey pelted my car with stones, so I had to leave,\u201d he said. At the next elections in October, Uruguayans will vote on a referendum to reduce the age of adult criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. When Mujica returns here, he sees a society that is both wealthier and weaker. This is partly an old man\u2019s lament for innocent childhood days spent gathering wood, selling flowers, and chasing fish in the creek, but also part of his discourse against consumerism, egoism and what he calls \u201cmental poverty\u201d. \u201cOur life has been made much easier,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that is eliminating creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bust of Che Guevara peers down from a bookshelf in Mujica\u2019s farmhouse. \u201cHe was unforgettable, a mould-breaker,\u201d the president said. \u201cHe marked our entire youth.\u201d Yet the man who, inspired by Guevara, once blew up factories owned by foreigners now offers them tax breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need capitalism to work, because I have to levy taxes to attend to the serious problems we have. Trying to overcome it all too abruptly condemns the people you are fighting for to suffering, so that instead of more bread, you have less bread,\u201d he said. Not all Tupamaros have accompanied Mujica on his journey to soft, pragmatic socialism. \u201cThey left their ideals in their prison cells,\u201d the former hostage Jorge Zabalza proclaimed recently. \u201cSome old\u00a0compa\u00f1eros<\/em>\u00a0won\u2019t understand,\u201d Mujica said. \u201cThey don\u2019t see our battle against people\u2019s everyday problems, that life is not a utopia.\u201d<\/p>\nAs in other countries in the region, an economic boom largely fuelled by China\u2019s growing need for food has lifted vast numbers out of poverty, down from 40 to 12% in a decade. Acute poverty has declined tenfold over the same period.<\/p>\n
The boom has coincided with the presidencies of Mujica and V\u00e1zquez, when the economy has grown by 75%, and public spending increased by almost 50%. Uruguay\u2019s wealth gap has also closed, not least because V\u00e1zquez\u2019s government introduced the country\u2019s first income tax. Social spending has surged, targeting the poorest.<\/p>\n
All Uruguayan schoolchildren have free laptops, though parts of the school system remain dysfunctional. But there has been no radical change to the basic social or political structure of Uruguay, partly because a complex institutional system discourages it. A land tax proposed by Mujica, for example, was struck out by the courts.<\/p>\n
Uruguay\u2019s democracy has so many checks and balances, the political scientist Garc\u00e9 said, that presidents must govern through dialogue, inoculating the country against the populism that has wreaked havoc elsewhere on the continent.<\/p>\n
The newly pragmatic Mujica no longer fights the globalisation which, by linking Chinese dinner tables to Uruguayan farms, funds this remarkable transformation. \u201cIt is like when I look in the mirror and see my wrinkles,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel sympathetic towards them, but they are inevitable. I have to fight to administer it as best I can, because if I start wailing like a baby I am not going to change it.\u201d Globalisation\u2019s glaring failure, Mujica said, is a lack of political oversight. \u201cIt is bad because it is only governed by the market. It has no politics or government. National governments are only worried about their next elections, but there are a series of global problems that no one deals with.\u201d That does not mean capitalism has won outright. \u201cI don\u2019t think it inevitable that the world should live in capitalism,\u201d he told me. \u201cThat is the same as not believing in man, and man is an animal with many defects but also with startling capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six<\/strong><\/p>\nMujica still believes in class warfare. (\u201cAnd yes,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is definitely war.\u201d) But that war, stripped of revolution and rained on by reality, is now fought on a very narrow battlefield. Salaries and union rights excite him most. Garc\u00e9 told me that Mujica has been hamstrung by his faction\u2019s minority status within the Broad Front coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe extraordinary thing is that we have a group of revolutionary socialists who didn\u2019t believe in democracy, then turned themselves into expert vote-seekers but eventually do only minimal reforms to the system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Yet, the minimum wage has jumped 50% during Mujica\u2019s term, suggesting that radical reform may not have been needed to take big steps down the road towards his impossible utopia. Indeed, when I asked Uruguayans how much Mujica had changed their country, some replied that it was Uruguay \u2013 and its traditions of moderation and dialogue \u2013 that had changed him. \u201cHis transformation,\u201d the economist Ernesto Calvi told me, \u201cis basically a triumph for liberal democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Tupamaros I met often mentioned Don Quixote. Mujica told me that Che Guevara embodied the spirit of Cervantes\u2019s mad, honour-obsessed knight errant. One young writer even suggested that the president had been deliberately marketed as a modern-day Quixote. The refusal to compromise personal honour \u2013 exemplified by his simple\u00a0chacra<\/em>\u00a0lifestyle \u2013 certainly fits that narrative.<\/p>\nWith their utopian dreams and their past love of \u201cjust\u201d but ultimately futile violence, the Tupamaros know all about tilting at windmills. But Mujica\u2019s determination to keep experimenting has seen him square idealism with pragmatism. And where austerity is inside the president\u2019s home, rather than outside it, accusations of selling out can only ring hollow.<\/p>\n
After our talk, the president donned muddy boots and showed me the farm buildings. The powder-blue VW Beetle sat in a dusty garage with rusting, sheet-metal doors. \u201cIt rarely breaks down, they virtually give away spare parts, and the insurance is cheap,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His post-presidency dream is to set up an agricultural school for young people in an empty barn beside the\u00a0chacra<\/em>. \u201cSince I devoted myself to fixing the world when I was young, I didn\u2019t have children,\u201d he explained. As we left, I asked a chard-picker about the president. \u201cHe\u2019s an ordinary man,\u201d he said. It sounded like an accolade.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emo Mannise was just 16 when he met Uruguay\u2019s current president, Jos\u00e9 Mujica. On a spring day in 1969, Mannise was at home alone with his sister, Beatriz, when the future president burst out of the lift outside their penthouse in Montevideo with a pistol in his hand. \u201cTurn around, shut your mouth and keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":48908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[14,7],"yoast_head":"\n
Is this the world\u2019s most radical president? - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president? - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Emo Mannise was just 16 when he met Uruguay\u2019s current president, Jos\u00e9 Mujica. On a spring day in 1969, Mannise was at home alone with his sister, Beatriz, when the future president burst out of the lift outside their penthouse in Montevideo with a pistol in his hand. \u201cTurn around, shut your mouth and keep […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/citi97.3\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-18T11:14:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8b234cf4-9af6-4dc7-a31e-f4080ccf5f5a-620x372.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"372\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jonas Nyabor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@citi973\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@citi973\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jonas Nyabor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"27 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/\",\"name\":\"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president? - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-09-18T11:14:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-09-18T11:14:12+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#\/schema\/person\/476b2fb2e9233445afbfa2662d85fe6b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/\",\"name\":\"Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always\",\"description\":\"Ghana News | Ghana Politics | Ghana Soccer | Ghana Showbiz\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#\/schema\/person\/476b2fb2e9233445afbfa2662d85fe6b\",\"name\":\"Jonas Nyabor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b74e004fce505330b7ba17aeaae177b3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b74e004fce505330b7ba17aeaae177b3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jonas Nyabor\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/author\/jonas\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president? - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president? - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always","og_description":"Emo Mannise was just 16 when he met Uruguay\u2019s current president, Jos\u00e9 Mujica. On a spring day in 1969, Mannise was at home alone with his sister, Beatriz, when the future president burst out of the lift outside their penthouse in Montevideo with a pistol in his hand. \u201cTurn around, shut your mouth and keep […]","og_url":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/","og_site_name":"Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/citi97.3","article_published_time":"2014-09-18T11:14:12+00:00","og_image":[{"width":620,"height":372,"url":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8b234cf4-9af6-4dc7-a31e-f4080ccf5f5a-620x372.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jonas Nyabor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@citi973","twitter_site":"@citi973","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jonas Nyabor","Est. reading time":"27 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/","url":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/","name":"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president? - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-09-18T11:14:12+00:00","dateModified":"2014-09-18T11:14:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#\/schema\/person\/476b2fb2e9233445afbfa2662d85fe6b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/09\/is-this-the-worlds-most-radical-president\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is this the world\u2019s most radical president?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/","name":"Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always","description":"Ghana News | Ghana Politics | Ghana Soccer | Ghana Showbiz","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#\/schema\/person\/476b2fb2e9233445afbfa2662d85fe6b","name":"Jonas Nyabor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b74e004fce505330b7ba17aeaae177b3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b74e004fce505330b7ba17aeaae177b3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jonas Nyabor"},"url":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/author\/jonas\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Jose](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/w-620\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2014\/9\/17\/1410969818740\/54b058ba-9ae7-403e-9417-c5aef63a816c-680x1020.jpeg\")
![\"Jos\u00e9](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/w-860\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2014\/9\/17\/1410970144354\/c4c25de2-d718-48ea-ae7e-f7435a3be403-1020x612.jpeg\")
<\/div>![\"Uruguay](\"http:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/w-620\/h--\/q-95\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2014\/9\/17\/1410969578077\/c4036848-8c6b-4e39-89cc-34af6393dbb2-620x372.jpeg\")