Topolansky and her twin sister María Elia were born on 25 September 1944 in Montevideo, the youngest of seven children of civil engineer and construction businessman Luis Topolansky Müller and María Elia Saavedra Rodríguez. The Topolansky family are of Polish noble ancestry originally from Kraków; Luis Topolansky was born in Budapest and studied in Vienna, who eventually moved to Uruguay for work.[5] On her mother's side, the Saavedras were an upper-class family.[6]
Topolansky grew up in the neighbourhoods of Prado, where she lived at her grandparents' house, and Pocitos. After her father became an associate for a construction company, they moved to Punta del Este, but returned to Montevideo shortly thereafter when the Uruguayan government opposed the government of then-Argentine president Juan Perón, causing him to prohibit Argentine citizens from spending their summers in Uruguay, resulting in her father's company going bankrupt.[7]
Upon returning to Montevideo, her father became ill with cancer, leaving the family in a critical economic situation and becoming dependent on her grandfather, then-Justice of the Peace Enrique Saavedra Barrozo, who supported the family's educational expenses.[8]
During her childhood, she studied at the College Sacré Cœur de las Hermanas Dominicas in Montevideo with her twin sister. She then entered the Alfredo Vásquez Acevedo Institute where she was part of the students' guild, and eventually studied at the University of the Republic in architecture. She abandoned her studies in 1969.[9]
Guerrilla
In 1967, after years of political activity, she joined the left-wing organization Tupamaros, waging guerrilla fights against the authorities in Uruguay. After the coup d'état in 1973, which resulted in the beginning of the civic-military dictatorship under Juan María Bordaberry, Topolansky was arrested and imprisoned in a military prison where she endured physical and psychological torture. During her tenure with the organization, she met her future husband José Mujica, who would eventually become the President of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. She eventually would have been associated with the Movement of Popular Participation (MPP).[10]
Political offices
She served as a Representative for Montevideo from 2000 to 2005 and she subsequently became a Senator. In the 2009 election, she received the highest number of votes for Senator as the leader of the 609 electoral list.
She was considered as a possible running mate for Tabaré Vázquez, the presidential candidate of the ruling coalition, in the 2014 elections.[11]
Acting President of Uruguay
On 26 November 2010, due to the absence of both President Mujica and Vice-President Danilo Astori, she became Acting President, making her the first woman to assume the Uruguay presidential powers and duties. This brief tenure as acting president lasted until 28 November 2010, when Vice President Astori returned to Uruguay.[12][13]
This state of affairs came about because of a clause in the Uruguayan Constitution, which stipulates that the Presidential powers & duties passes temporarily to the leader of the largest elected grouping in the Upper House, if both the President and the Vice President are absent from the territory of the Republic.
Following the resignation of Raúl Fernando Sendic, after protracted series of controversies, she was appointed Vice President of Uruguay in Sendic's place on 13 September 2017.[14] This occurred since she was the second most voted Senator on the most voted ballot of the party by which the president and vice president were elected. The Senator with the most votes, Mujica, could not assume the position since he had served as President of the Republic in the previous term.[15]
