Former Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, known as Pepe, has esophageal cancer and is in the terminal stage. He is receiving palliative care to relieve pain, his wife told a local media outlet today.
In January, the 89-year-old president, an icon of the left in Latin America, revealed that his cancer, diagnosed in May 2024, had spread and that his aging body was no longer able to withstand treatment.
Jose Mujica's cancer is in the terminal stage, said his wife, former Vice President Lucia Topolanski, in an interview with Radio Sarandi published today, adding that she is doing everything necessary for her husband to live out his last days of life - as best he can.
The absence of the former leader of Uruguay (2010-2015) was conspicuous during regional elections on Sunday, after which the left retained power in the capital Montevideo.
Yesterday, current President Yamando Orsi, a protégé of Mujica, called for respect for the former guerrilla's privacy.
"We should all make sure that dignity is key at every stage of our lives. It should not be disturbed, it should be left alone," he said.
José Mujica, known as Pepe, became famous worldwide for his rejection of convention while he ruled Uruguay, a small South American country of 3,4 million people sandwiched between the giants of Brazil and Argentina.
The advocate of frugality refused to live in the presidential palace, drove an aging Volkswagen Beetle, and preferred to stay on his modest farm outside Montevideo. He gained popularity for his spontaneous, outspoken, and often polemical speeches.
An advocate of very progressive measures for Latin America such as the legalization of cannabis, which was a world first in 2013, abortion and same-sex marriage, Mujica earned the nickname "the poorest president in the world" by donating almost his entire presidential salary to a social housing program.
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