SOUTH AMERICA NEWS (Prensa Latina) — Uruguayan President Jose Mujica called the Uruguayan population to vote with respect and joy, in the general elections of Sunday, October 26.
“We must go together with our agreements and differences in a joyful and respectful march next Sunday. This is not a war, and it’s not tthe end of the story. It is one more step, a very important step,” said Mujica, who asked the voters for tolerance, respect and coexistence.
After he reminded the differences that have historically existed in the Uruguayan political parties, the President said that “tolerance and respect are indispensable for the differences to be expressed.”
During the interview Wednesday, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica has said that people “who like money too much must be kicked out of politics.”
In an indirect attack on the opposition candidates for Sunday’s upcoming election he said that these people are a “real danger” and because of their attachment to money will become confused of what makes “a good government.”
The remarks were made as part of a CNN interview from his farm outside of the capital Montevideo where he famously lives an austere life. The firebrand, leftist president said surrounding political power with luxury betrays republican values and the idea that “we are all equal and no one is better than anyone else.”
He added that politics should have non material goals, “they are of another kind, they are moral.”
Mujica said that the politician’s job or rather what he should strive for is “love and acknowledgement from the people.”
“Politics is the struggle for happiness, for all,” said Mujica.
In regards to his famous austere life, he said that “I travel in life light in luggage, so those things don’t rob me of my freedom.”
In another interview he gave to The Economist he pointed out the perils of modern capitalist life, saying that growth “is necessary, but it is much slower and more difficult because of the number of things on which the consumer society causes us to squander energy.”
He added that the crises in the world are “a crisis of governance.”
The outgoing president went on to say that, “I believe that the wealthiest should pay to eliminate world poverty and incorporate them in consumption, but the consumption of useful things. It’s nonsense that we throw away so much and we make useless things to throw away when there are women walking 5 kilometers to fetch two pitchers of water. But there is nowhere to propose and debate these things.”
Mujica ended saying that “it is still possible to believe in the utopia of building a better world.”
“This is a beautiful life which we must look after and in which we must struggle and toil to be as happy as possible, with all its contradictions. We don’t have to waste it. Freedom means having time to live that which motivates us,” he poetically concluded.
Sources: Telesur; Prensa Latina
