SAO PAULO (AFP) ― Brazil’s ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is undergoing treatment for throat cancer, is faring well in terms of his spirits, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica said Tuesday.

Lula “is doing just fine mentally, psychologically, with the same perspicaciousness and joy he always has had,” former leftist guerrilla Mujica, 76, said after meeting on political events and regional integration with Lula, who has been undergoing radiation therapy.

The popular 66-year-old former president late last year underwent three chemotherapy sessions, and doctors said the last one shrank his cancerous tumor by 75 percent.

Lula was Brazil’s first elected leftist president, leading Brazil from January 2003 to December 2010. He left office with a soaring 80 percent approval rating after two consecutive terms, legally unable to serve three straight terms.