José Mujica, who as a captured Tupamaro guerrilla had spent ten years in solitary confinement, two of them at the bottom of a well with only ants and rats for company, was elected president of Uruguay in 2009 for the left-wing Frente Amplio (Broad Front). In office, he continued to live austerely in his three-room farmhouse, drove an ancient VW Beetle and lunched in the nondescript cafeterias of Montevideo’s Avenida 18 de Julio, its main commercial street. He attracted worldwide attention not just for his modest lifestyle, but also for successfully promoting the legalisation of marijuana in
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