CROWDS have poured into the streets of Montevideo to bid a poignant farewell to Uruguay’s former president Jose Mujica, a former guerilla who became a pioneering leader and icon of the Latin American left.

Thousands of people joined the procession on Wednesday as the flag-furled coffin of Mr Mujica, affectionately known as “Pepe,” made its way on a gun carriage through the centre of the capital.

The cortege took nearly four hours to reach the parliament building, where banners, wreaths, handwritten notes and portraits littered the lawn and emotions ran high.

“Farewell, Pepe” was painted across the walls of the historic Legislative Palace.

Mr Mujica died on Tuesday, just days before he would have turned 90, at his house on the outskirts of Montevideo.

The home of the former president, who is remembered most for his humility, simple lifestyle and ideological earnestness, was a three-room farmhouse where he lived throughout his life and during his presidency from 2010 to 2015, in rejection of Uruguay’s opulent presidential mansion.

He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in April last year.

Mr Mujica’s coffin lay in state before his funeral late yesterday, which was expected to draw an array of sympathetic left-wing leaders, from Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Uruguay’s presidency said.

During his term of office, as Mr Mujica legalised cannabis and same-sex marriage, enacted the region’s first sweeping abortion rights law and established Uruguay as a leader in green energy.

He also won respect for meeting with his political foes, despite polarisation across the continent.

Chants of “Pepe, dear, the people are with you!” rose as the horse-drawn hearse passed through the streets on Wednesday. Uruguayans applauded from balconies, packed the pavements along the route and formed snaking lines outside the parliament, waiting to pay their respects to Mr Mujica’s closed casket. Some wiped away tears and others sombrely bowed their heads.

“It’s like losing a family member,” said Estela Piriz, a 69-year-old nurse who was among those gathered for the wake. “I have come to say my final goodbye.”

That slow and steady stream of ordinary people — as well as politicians, ministers and former officials — seemed a fitting tableau for the lying-in-state of the humble chrysanthemum farmer whose folksy maxims on excessive consumerism and bold progressive policies earned him admiration at home and abroad.

President Yamandu Orsi, Mr Mujica’s protege from his left-wing Broad Front party, declared three days of national mourning, starting on Wednesday, in a presidential decree that praised Mr Mujica’s “humanist philosophy.

Mr Orsi also suspended all government operations except what was strictly necessary, while flags dropped to half-mast.

The president and Lucia Topolansky, Mr Mujica’s wife and fellow guerilla turned politician, launched the funeral procession together from the government headquarters.

After privately saying farewell to Mr Mujica’s casket, Ms Topolansky emerged from the Legislative Palace with a stunned expression and left quickly.

A former mayor and history teacher, Mr Orsi has, like his mentor, shunned the pomp and circumstance of the presidential palace in favour of commuting from his family home.

Mr Mujica made some of his last public appearances to campaign and cast his ballot for Mr Orsi last autumn.

Before, as president, overseeing the transformation of his small South American nation into one of the world’s most socially liberal democracies, Mr Mujica had robbed banks, planted bombs and abducted business leaders in the 1960s as the head of a left-wing guerilla group known as the Tupamaros.