The former Uruguayan president Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica On Monday, he celebrated the victory of Gustavo Petro, who became the first left-wing ruler of Colombia, and urged citizens to help him because he “cannot do magic.”
“The first thing Colombia needs is peace to face social problems,” but “we must help the new government,” said Mujica, 87, who he presided over Uruguay from 2010 to 2015.
Petro “is not a Godhe is just a president who cannot do magic, he needs the collaboration of a good part of his people,” he told fellow station W Radio.
Petro, a 62-year-old ex-guerrilla, He prevailed in the second round over the 77-year-old populist and millionaire, Rodolfo Hernández.
Mujica, who days ago released a video calling Colombians to vote for Petro, was in prison from 1973 to 1985 for his militancy in the National Liberation Movement-Tupamaros, during the military dictatorship. A quarter of a century later he became president of his country.
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From that experience, he considered that Petro’s insurgent past as member of the M-19 it was not “a problem” but “an advantage”.
“That’s the advantage. knows the pain from both sides”, Mujica said of the newly elected president. “The problem is getting over it. You can’t spend your whole life collecting bills from the past,” he said.
Mujica pointed out that “it is an opportunity to try to learn from our own pain (…). Now the fight in a society like Colombia is the fight because some enemies can become adversaries, which is not the same”, something fundamental to “learn to live together”.
“Cultivate a new partnership” with Petro
On the eve of the second round of the presidential elections in Colombia, Mujica had asked Colombians accompany Gustavo Petro to cultivate “a new society” peaceful and equitable.
This was expressed by the referent of the Latin American left in a video message, in which Mujica alluded to his past as a guerrilla of the National Liberation Movement (MLN).
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In the recording, which was shared by Petro on his social networks, Mujica reflected on the challenges of a Colombia that it has to “cultivate peace and the fight against poverty”, as well as “multiply the economy” to get ahead.
Along these lines, he assured that Petro, whom he defined as his “friend”, has “empathy with the humble people, who suffered the most” and the knowledge that the world has changed in the last 25 years, necessary to accompany a country that, he emphasized, “needs less hate, less selfishness, more human solidarity”.
Mujica, retired from parliamentary politics since 2020when he left his senator seat to protect himself from covid-19, he assured that he hopes that the Colombian people “give him the opportunity to prove it.”
“Honor the beauty of nature that you have, measure up to that dizzying nature, and cultivate a new society. For peace, for bread, for us, for Colombia, for our Latin America”concluded the former president, who sent “a hug” and a “goodbye” to the “brother” Colombian people.
