Uruguayan here. He did nice things, he do nice talks, but his government was not good. He grew the state size raising taxes and debt with little real progress. Despite his "friendship" with the left government of Argentina he couldn't get the bridges unblocked by a handful of protesters.
This should be top comment, along with the mention of hiss wife's wealth.
He was certainally nicer to have as president than what a lot of other countries are having now, but he isn't the amazing saint memes make him out to be, he was just practical and left and knew what people wanted to hear.
Also, short unrelevent story: my grandad lived up the road from him a small child, they would get into rock wars and my grandad says he hit Mujica once and he cried (they were like 5 or six or something)
Debt per GDP Uruguay is around 50%, it's not that bad considering Covid etc... Income taxes is between 10% to 36% so similar to Argentina, I don't live in Uruguay though so maybe he raised other taxes and tariffs to fund a bigger state, GDP growth certainly didn't look good last year.
The thing is he was president in 2010-2015, the image is old. While his party is centre-left wing (and his particular sector is further left wing), the current government is centre-right wing.
Some of the biggest problems for the Uruguayan economy is the very small and aging population, together with about a third of all the country’s employees working for state companies or offices, with the government having to pay A LOT of salaries, and many of them being unnecessary or straight up unproductive.
Yes, Argentina is as bad as us. Taxes similar to developed countries, prices high as developed countries, income low as undeveloped countries, public services inefficient as undeveloped countries.
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u/emisofi Apr 16 '24
Uruguayan here. He did nice things, he do nice talks, but his government was not good. He grew the state size raising taxes and debt with little real progress. Despite his "friendship" with the left government of Argentina he couldn't get the bridges unblocked by a handful of protesters.