The "Poorest" President In The World

He was wearing worn cotton blue pants, a light blue polo shirt and a brown jacket when the BBC conducted the famous interview that gained him the label of the poorest president on earth. Jose Mujica is 77 years old and was elected president for the first time in Uruguay in 2010. Inside his humble house, a flower farm owned by his senator wife, Lucía Topolansky, he says, “ They say that I’m the poorest president. No, I’m not. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more.”  

 Uruguay is squeezed between Argentina and Brazil, with half of the country touching the Atlantic Ocean. Its 3.3 million people, where an estimated 88% of the population is of European descent, are largely middle class and the country is known for its liberal social laws such a legalization of marijuana and abortion.  

 However, the Uruguayan president's lifestyle is similar to the  18.6 % population below poverty line than any politician in country. 

He drives a 1987 VW Beetle and donates 90% of his salary to charity. He earns approximate $ 12,500 dollars a month but believes that he only needs $1,250 to live. “I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less,” Mujica says.

But what is the most fascinating about Mujica is his background. During the 1970s coup d'état that took place in Uruguay, he was shot 7 times and spent 14 years in jail. Much of those years, Mujica was in a cell in solitude and under acute torture as a norm for political prisoners.

Mujica could have turned into a hateful person toward the militaries and governed his presidency similar to Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro. Instead, for anyone who has seen Mujica’s latest speech in Rio+20 Summit that resemble more to Noam Chomsky or Eduardo Galeano thoughts than any president of the twenty-one century.