Uruguay’s Jose Mujica: The world’s ‘Poorest’ president

My note: Simplemente, guay! This is how leaders should behave toward the nation they are supposed to serve. An individual is successful in life when he/she is competent and modest at the same time. Good-for-nothing, morally irresponsible leaders like the Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga – who on several occations expressed anti-Ethiopian sentiments – is the third highest paid politician in the world, higher than President Obama. Obama’s father is descended from the same Luo tribe of Kenya as Mr Odinga, and his half-brother may run for President of Kenya in 2018

It’s a common grumble that politicians’ lifestyles are far removed from those of their electorate. Not so in Uruguay. Meet the president – who lives on a ramshackle farm and gives away most of his pay.

Laundry is strung outside the house. The water comes from a well in a yard, overgrown with weeds. Only two police officers and Manuela, a three-legged dog, keep watch outside.

This is the residence of the president of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, whose lifestyle clearly differs sharply from that of most other world leaders.

President Mujica has shunned the luxurious house that the Uruguayan state provides for its leaders and opted to stay at his wife’s farmhouse, off a dirt road outside the capital, Montevideo.

The president and his wife work the land themselves, growing flowers.

This austere lifestyle – and the fact that Mujica donates about 90% of his monthly salary, equivalent to $12,000 (£7,500), to charity – has led him to be labelled the poorest president in the world.

Continue reading…

__

Out of Africa – Did the Colonial Powers Ever Really Leave?

Africa may have achieved independence, but the old colonial ties are still important as France’s decision to send troops to Mali to fight Islamist extremists shows. The old colonial powers in Africa may no longer be the rulers, but they still exert influence and have strong economic and political links. David McDonald, professor of the Global Development Studies at Queen’s University, says, “The French and the English were much more strategic in terms of recognizing that they wanted to maintain neo-colonial linkages with their former colonies. So it was shedding the direct authoritarian power at the barrel of a gun and replacing that with independence, but an independence that was, and is still to some extent, extremely dependent on the political and economic will of the former colonial masters.”

 

Continue reading…