José Mujica

José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano (born May 20, 1935) is an Uruguanyan politician who has been President of Uruguay since 2010. A former guerrilla fighter and a member of the Broad Front (left-wing coalition), Mujica was Minister of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries from 2005 to 2008 and a Senator afterwards. As the candidate of the Broad Front, he won the 2009 presidential election and took office as President on 1 March 2010.

Early Life

Mujica was born on 20 May 1935 to Demetrio Mujica, of Basque ancestry and Lucy Cordano of Italian descent.

As a youth, Mujica was active in the National Party, where he became close to Enrique Erro.

Guerilla leader

In the early 1960s, he joined the newly formed Tupamaros movement, an armed political group inspired by the Cuban revolution. He participated in the 1969 brief takeover of Pando, a town close to Montevideo, and was later convicted by a military tribunal under the government of Jorge Pacheco Areco, who had suspended certain constitutional guarantees. Mujica was captured by the authorities on four occasions, and he was among those political prisoners who escaped Punta Carretas Prison in 1971. 

He was eventually re-apprehended in 1972, and was shot by the police six times. After the military coup in 1973, he was transferred to a military prison where he served 14 years. During the 1970s, this included being confined to the bottom of a well for more than two years. During his time in prison, he remained in contact with other leaders of the Tupamaros, including Frente Amplio Senator Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro and the founder and leader of the Tupamaros, Raúl Sendic.

In 1985, when democracy was restored, Mujica was freed under an amnesty law that covered political and related military crimes committed since 1962.

Several years after the restoration of democracy, Mujica and the Tupamaros joined other left-wing organizations to create the Movement of Popular Participation, a political party that was accepted within the Broad Front coalition.

In the 1994 general elections, Mujica was elected deputy and in the elections of 1999 he was elected senator. Due in part to Mujica’s charisma, the MPP continued to grow in popularity and votes, and by 2004, it had become the largest of any faction within the Broad Front. In the elections of that year, Mujica was re-elected to the Senate, and the MPP obtained over 300,000 votes, thus consolidating its position as the primary political force within the coalition and a major force behind the victory of presidential candidate Tabaré Vázquez.

Personal Life

In 2005, Mujica married Lucía Topolansky, a fellow Tupamaro member and current senator, after many years of co-habitation. They have no children and live on an austere farm in the outskirts of Montevideo, the country's capital. His humble lifestyle is reflected by his choice of an aging Volkswagen Beetle as transport, his only asset. His wife owns the farm they live on. The Economist describes him as "a roly-poly former guerrilla who grows flowers on a small farm and swears by vegetarianism" He also donates 87% of his state salary to charitable causes.

From : www.wikipedia.org