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The former Uruguayan president gave details about his health condition and assured that he will not undergo any treatment to alleviate the disease. The former Uruguayan president José “Pepe” Mujica spoke in the last hours about how his health continues after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer and revealed that the tumor has spread. “The cancer in my esophagus is colonizing my liver. I can't stop it with anything. Why? Because I am an old man and because I have two chronic diseases,” he said.

Thus, in an interview with the local media Búsqueda, he assured: “Neither a biochemical treatment nor surgery will fit me because my body cannot stand it”. After that, he affirmed: “What I ask is that they leave me alone. That they don't ask me for more interviews or anything else. My cycle is over. Honestly, I am dying. And the warrior has the right to rest”.

The former president was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in April last year and since then he underwent different treatments and interventions. The most recent was in the last days of December, when he was fitted with a device that allows him to feed and hydrate himself better. “I'm going to die here,” he said, referring to the farm in Rincón del Cerro where he lives with his wife, Lucía Topolansky. “Outside there is a big sequoia. Manuela (his dog) is buried there. I am making the papers so that they bury me there too. And that's it,” he said.

In this way, the leader of the Movement of Popular Participation (MPP) also referred to the future of his political space after a historic vote in the last elections in which Yamandú Orsi was victorious. Besides assuring that he feels “proud” and that it is something that allows him to “go away calm and grateful”, he added that he is uncomfortable that “they invent lucubrations” about the fact that he could have an important role in the future government, which will take office next March 1st.

“The day after he won the elections he came to see me in the morning, I never talked to him again”, he said about his relationship with the elected president and remarked: ‘I have no idea, I don't intend to know anything and I don't want to see anything because the worst thing there is is to set up a government’. In the same vein, Mujica defined himself as an “old man at the end” who wants to “say goodbye to his compatriots and supporters”. “It is easy to have respect for those who think similar to you, but we must learn that the foundation of democracy is respect for those who think differently. Therefore, the first category are my compatriots and I say goodbye to them. I give them all a hug,” he said and added: ”Second, I say goodbye to my colleagues and supporters. The only thing I want to do now is to say goodbye”.

In another message of political color, he said: “There is nothing like democracy. When I was young I did not think like that, it is true. I was wrong. But today I am fighting for it. It is not the perfect society, it is the best possible one”. At the age of 88, the political leader of the neighboring country announced in April 2024 at a press conference that he had a tumor in the esophagus, which had been diagnosed at the Casmu Assistance Center after a medical checkup.

“In my life, more than once the grim reaper went around the cot, but he kept on shepherding me. This time it seems to me that he is coming with his scythe at the ready and we will see what happens. As long as I can, I'll keep on militating and entertaining myself with vegetables. As long as the roll lasts, I will continue”, he indicated.

From the beginning, his situation was considered “complicated” due to the fact that the former president has had a previous immunological disease for more than 20 years that affects his kidneys. In addition, he had recently undergone a scheduled surgery to place a stent that would improve his conditions for the ingestion of food.

Earlier this year, in an interview for LA NACION, he had considered that “he could not complain” and that reaching the age of 90 was “a miracle”. “I have about seven different bullets in my body. I lost my spleen, I have a smaller lung, my heart is bent that way... I don't know,” he listed on that occasion. And he said: “I believe that nobody likes to die. Because we are programmed to want to live, but we know that in the end we die. I'm not afraid of it, I don't want it either. But because of the age I am, and the ailments, it is a bitter companion that is near. I have to shepherd her.”

On how he will be remembered by future generations, he said: “As a half-crazy old man. Because at the age of 21 I wanted to transform the world and I started to be a militant when I was 14 years old. In the last election, in the speech I gave at the MPP event, I had to hold on to keep myself upright. But well, now that I am retiring from the political organization to which I devoted almost 40 years of my life, it turns out that we received the record number of votes as a sector in the history of the country, and even more, we got the President! Do you understand me?”.