President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica, who was once nicknamed “the poorest president in the world” has put his blue Volkswagen car on sale. Mujica described as one of the world’s most humble presidents, has already received a million-dollar offer for the blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.
It is a well-used car that has become something of a symbol of the Uruguayan leader’s austere lifestyle.
The President told the Uruguayan weekly, Busqueda, that an Arab Sheikh offered $1m for the vehicle.
When asked about the reported offer at a news conference, President Mujica said: “That’s what they said to me, but I didn’t give it any importance.”
In an informal chat, Mexico’s ambassador to Uruguay recently suggested to President Mujica that he should auction the Beetle in Mexico and predicted that he could get 10 four-wheel-drive trucks for it.
But President Mujica, a former leftist Tupamaro guerrilla leader, said that if he got $1m for the car, he would donate the money to a programme he supports that gives housing to the homeless. If he got trucks for it, he said, they could go to Uruguay’s public health office or his campaign workers.
The president said he would gladly auction the Beetle because he has “no commitment to cars.”
Asked why someone would pay a fortune for his little car, President Mujica said: “Human beings have a bit of fetishism; we need certain material symbols.”
He disclosed that he keeps a hammer and shovel that belonged to his father, adding: “they are little things to the world, but are worth a lot to me.”
President Mujica gained world renown when he assumed Uruguay’s presidency in 2010 and declared that his entire wealth amounted to the 1987 Beetle and a farm. [myad]
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