Uruguay's president José Mujica: no palace, no motorcade, no frills
In the week that Uruguay legalises cannabis, the 78-year-old explains why he rejects the 'world's poorest president' label
José Mujica, the Uruguayan president, at his house in Montevideo. Photograph: Mario Goldman/AFP/Getty Images
If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is José Mujica, Uruguay's president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle.