Low-key. Honest. Humble. Egalitarian. Such descriptors abounded from leaders around Latin America after the death this week of José “Pepe” Mujica, Uruguay’s leftist-rebel-turned-philosopher-president.
These traits could also be applied to Uruguayan society more generally. And they offer clues to why this small South American nation is a bastion of democracy in a politically unstable region.
With a tinge of wistful envy, other Latin Americans jest that Uruguayans lack “drama.” Tongue in cheek, a Peruvian novelist observed in Vanity Fair, “Whenever [Uruguayans] have a national conflict, they solve it by referendum.” A journalist from more volatile Argentina has joked, “I don’t know how they put up with us as neighbors.”
In a more serious vein, a Panamanian analyst ranked Uruguay’s democracy as “among the best in the world.” A leading Chilean university hosted a conference on Uruguay as a model of strong economic growth alongside strong social protections.
Mr. Mujica once told The Economist that the “enormous advantages” of democracy is that “It doesn’t believe itself to be finished or perfect.”
The country enjoys relatively high per capita income, low inequality, and high social cohesion. Like elsewhere in Latin America, it is confronting rising crime from drug-related cartels. And like its neighbors, Uruguay has experienced civil war (though not since 1904) and nearly 12 years of military rule (which ended in 1985). It emerged from both with foundational reforms, including free education.
With voting compulsory, all Uruguayans are “forced to have a role in the democracy,” the Harvard International Review noted in March. High participation, it said, “translates into more confidence in political institutions.” Which, in turn, appears to foster trust in leadership, whether the president of the moment is from the far left, as Mr. Mujica was; from the conservative end of the spectrum, as was his rival, Julio María Sanguinetti; or left-leaning, like recently elected Yamandú Orsi.
An unwritten rule in Uruguay, Mr. Orsi told Americas Quarterly, is respect for the opposition. Mr. Mujica often voiced another one: “No one is better than anyone else.”
In fact, he and Mr. Sanguinetti made a conscious effort to model what civility can look like. Once sworn enemies, they bridged some divides, agreed to disagree on others, and even wrote a book together.
“There’s nothing special about Uruguay,” Mr. Sanguinetti has said, with that characteristic national modesty. “I think others can do this too.”
