If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is José Mujica, Uruguay’s president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle.
But the former guerrilla fighter is clearly disgruntled by those who tag him “the world’s poorest president” and – much as he would like others to adopt a more sober lifestyle – the 78-year-old has been in politics long enough to recognise the folly of claiming to be a model for anyone.
“If I asked people to live as I live, they would kill me,” Mujica said during an interview in his small but cosy one-bedroom home set amid chrysanthemum fields outside Montevideo.
via Uruguay’s president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills | World news | The Guardian.
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