MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mujica calls on followers to build a better society and not collect bills from the past

The former guerrilla leader will cap his presidential salary at the equivalent of 1.600 US dollars.

Uruguay’s president elect Jose Pepe Mujica called on militants and followers “to meditate, to think” about the motives for “the cause, colours and commitments” of the catch-all coalition which under his leadership will be repeating another five years of government.

Speaking at the 39th anniversary of the founding of the “Broad Front” a political heterogeneous arch extending from former guerrillas, Trotskyites and Communists to Social democrats and Christian democrats, Mujica, 74, described the coalition as a “political grouping which represents the history of the suffering left and proletariat”, but whose mission “is not to collect bills from the past” but rather “to build a better society”.

This is why it is so important for the left wing coalition “the historic responsibility of performing a good government”, for the good of all political sectors in Uruguay because a government “is not an instrument of hatred, but of deep manifestation of solidarity and organized commitment”.

Mujica will be taking office next March first and will be handed the presidential sash by outgoing president Tabare Vazquez who in 2005 put an end to 150 years of dominance of what in Uruguay is known as “historic or traditional” parties. The National and Colorado parties have now been relegated to the opposition,

Before the official celebration the Broad Front chairman Jorge Brovetto said that the coalition has achieved what can be truly described as “a fundamental transformation in the way the country is conducted and its goals”.

“The Broad Front is the confluence of very different political actors but with the idea of transforming the concept of the country to make it more fair, more democratic, more inclusive and where intelligence and effort are the essential arguments for its transformation”, said Brovetto.

Earlier in the day Mujica’s political secretary Julio Martínez announced that the president elect will be donating 85% of his presidential salary (approximately 12.500 US dollars) to different charities following a long established rule in his own party Popular Participation Movement, MPP.

“Mujica was behind the idea of salary caps for government posts and that cap currently is at the equivalent of 1.600 US dollars, which he is prepared to maintain”, said Martínez who added that the future president wants the “extra money” to be invested in building homes.

The cap on salaries is in line with what Mujica anticipated about his own style of living when taking office: he will continue to live in his farm in the outskirts of Montevideo and will drive the small gasoline efficient Corsa, the MPP party has assigned to him.

The cap on salaries for all MPP members and representatives with government posts was introduced in 2005 when the Broad Front became government for the first time.

“The idea behind this idea, according to Mujica, is that politics is not a career to profit from the state but rather a service to the citizen, to the man in the street”, said Martinez.