By Robert Albro
President José Mujica on stage with SIS Dean James Goldgeier
Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica, whose recent trip to Washington included a stop at American University, is doubtless Latin America’s most unconventional president. A former leftist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, Mujica gives away 90 percent of his salary, refuses to live in the presidential mansion, grows chrysanthemums, and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was elected in 2009 as candidate of the center-left Frente Amplio, and his accomplishments have transformed him into an international figure – and turned Uruguay into an intriguing experiment in social liberalism. He has avoided the populist tendencies and overt anti-Americanism of other Latin American leftists, while promoting programs of social inclusion alongside a pro-business economic agenda. Under Mujica, Uruguay has enacted an affirmative action law, legalized abortion in the first trimester, and legalized gay marriage. Most discussed has been his administration’s controversial launch this year of a legal government-licensed and -regulated marijuana market.
Mujica is notably less popular at home than abroad, however. After plunging to 36 percent in late 2012, his approval rating has since hovered around 47 percent. With national elections (in which he cannot run) looming in October, a poll last month showed the Frente Amplio losing significant ground to the opposition. Mujica has consistently dismissed the polls. He went ahead with legalizing pot, for example, despite a September 2013 poll indicating that 63 percent of Uruguayans still did not support the measure. His asylum offer for up to six Guantanamo detainees, based on humanitarian concerns, has also not been popular, with only 23 percent of Uruguayans approving. Uruguay ranks among the safest countries in the Americas, with 5.9 homicides per 100,000 people, and yet the perception of insecurity is widespread. In a 2012 poll 56 percent of Uruguayans still reported crime and violence to be the country’s most pressing problem. If celebrated by advocates of social liberalism, Mujica’s policy measures often appear out of kilter with popular perceptions and priorities.
Mujica is often cited as offering a potential alternative to the Bolivarian brand of “21st century socialism.” But, in what is arguably Latin America’s most socially liberal country, the former Marxist has governed as a pragmatist. Uruguay has a lot going for it, including: a stable banking system, free and secular education, low levels of corruption and social inequality, robust press freedoms, and stable governance with functional political parties. It is second in South America behind Argentina on International Living’s quality of life index. It has the third highest GDP per capita – triple that of Ecuador and Bolivia – and under Mujica has sustained stable economic and wage growth, and increased foreign investment in farming, forestry and pulp mills. However, while he gets points for his international celebrity, austere lifestyle, and colorful persona, Mujica risks alienating the many citizens who care more about unemployment, inflation, crime and insecurity than about the environment, cannabis and gay marriage. It is not clear whether over time Uruguayans will support Mujica’s particular left-liberal pragmatic brand of governance and whether his is a model embraced by other Latin American leaders.
AULA Blog 
Guillermo Kerber, Programme Executive Climate Justice, World Council of Churches
/ May 20, 2014Your post highlights in a very accurate way some of the crucial issues of Mujica’s presidency.
I would have a comment, however, regarding the sentence “Mujica risks alienating the many citizens who care more about unemployment, inflation, crime and insecurity than about the environment, cannabis and gay marriage”, specially in relation to environment. In my view, as I expressed at the Seminar at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies of the American University in February 2014, Mujica’s presidency, with his effort to attract foreign capital has overlooked environmental concerns. There is a gap between his discourse at the international level and what he is doing at home, especially in relationship to the paper pulp industry, open air mining and the deep water harbour.
In my view it has also to do with a perspective of his generation. Although, as you rightly said, under his administration social welfare has improved significantly living conditions of the poor sectors of the society, environmental concerns are not high in his agenda.
I enjoyed reading your post and I think it provides a good insight on the challenges Uruguay and other countries in Latin America are facing.
Rob Albro
/ May 20, 2014Dear Guillermo,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, which helpfully provides some desirable context to what the Mujica administration has prioritized and how such priorities are (and are not) pursued, in the effort to move beyond rhetoric and policy debates to concrete actions.
I recall your take on Mujica in the context of our discussions at the workshop here in D.C. this past February. I don’t disagree. Your perception of the “gap between his discourse at the international level and what he is doing at home” is something that resonates and that I also wanted to pick up on in the post. On this topic, my sense is that Mujica — who is often perceived favorably among international progressives — does not always neatly square with Mujica — the pro-business pragmatic leader also seeking to attract foreign capital. In this sense, when Mujica raises the question of the “environment,” as with his widely viewed and impassioned address at the Rio+20 meeting in 2012,it is perhaps intended more for the international community than for a domestic constituency. Domestically, his record on the environment is, as you note, less inspiring.