Bolivian Opposition Leaders Split, Infighting Begins
Bolivian Opposition Leaders Split, Infighting Begins
Opposition leader Carlos Mesa (pictured above) faces serious allegations of wrongdoing. | Photo: Wikipedia
Published 3 August 2019 (39 minutes ago)
Bolivia’s right wing opposition is increasingly divided ahead of the country’s elections in October. Tensions burst out on Friday when opposition leaders Carlos Mesa and Oscar Ortiz traded blows in the media. Ortiz accused Mesa, the leading opposition candidate, of corruption, while Mesa accused Ortiz of dirty tactics and working for the government.
Mesa, representing the right-wing ‘Citizens Community’ is polling in second place and is Evo Morales’ closest challenger. He was vicepresident under former neoliberal president Gonzalez Sanchez de Lozada, known as ‘Goni.’ Goni was overthrown in 2003 by social movements, and is seen by most as one of the most unpopular presidents due to his attempt at privatizing natural resources and violent repression of protests.
Evidence emerged earlier in the week that Goni had paid Mesa millions to the media company he owns in return for being his vice presidential candidate. Bring accusations that Mesa put himself for sale to the highest bidder.
Mesa refused to respond to the evidence, instead claiming that he was the victim of dirty tactics, saying, “We are facing a systematic dirty war that has no limits, and, in this case, has three protagonists who are carrying out the dirty war against me and against the Citizen’s Community: Gonismo, Oscar Ortiz and the MAS [Morales’ party]. I am not going to play the dirty war ”
More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bolivian-Opposition-Leaders-Split-Infighting-Begins--20190803-0009.html
Former vice president Carlos de Mesa helping "Goni" (Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada) slither into his sash.
You may recall seeing a film starring Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton, portraying two U.S. public relations people who schemed and ran the Presidential Campaign for "Goni," (mostly completely innacurate to the max), named "Our Brand is Crisis". Some actual US citizens DID do the campaign for Goni, and unfortunately, he won. He went ahead to order a massacre of indigenous people protesting some twisted decisions he made which created more suffering.
He and his vice-president fled to the US where they lived in "exile" in order to not be prosecuted.
"Goni" Wiki:
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada y Sánchez de Bustamante (born July 1, 1930), familiarly known as "Goni", is a Bolivian politician and businessman, who served as President of Bolivia for two non-consecutive terms. He is a lifelong member of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR). As Minister of Planning in the government of President Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Sánchez de Lozada used "shock therapy" in 1985 to cut hyperinflation from an estimated 25,000% to a single digit within a period of less than 6 weeks.
Sánchez de Lozada was twice elected President of Bolivia, both times on the MNR ticket. During his first term (1993–1997), he initiated a series of landmark social, economic and constitutional reforms. Elected to a second term in 2002, he struggled with protests and events in October 2003 related to the Bolivian gas conflict. Official reports said that 59 protesters, soldiers and policemen died; most deaths were of protesters or bystanders. He resigned and went into exile in the United States in October 2003. In March 2006, he resigned the leadership of the MNR.[1]
The government of Evo Morales has unsuccessfully been seeking his extradition from the US to stand a political trial for the events of 2003.[1] Victims' representatives have pursued compensatory damages for extrajudicial killings in a suit against him in the United States under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). In 2014 the US District Court in Florida ruled the case could proceed under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). The trial, which began on March 5, 2018 and concluded on May 30, 2018, found Sánchez de Lozada and his former defense minister Carlos Sanchez Berzaín not liable for the civilian deaths after the judge declared that there was "insufficient evidence" to do so.
Political life
The son of a political exile, Sánchez de Lozada spent his early years in the United States, where he attended boarding school at Scattergood Friends School in rural Iowa.[2] He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago. As a result of this experience, his Spanish is accented,[3] leading many Bolivians to refer to him as "El Gringo."
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_S%C3%A1nchez_de_Lozada