Latest news with #Jorge Quiroga
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bolivia presidential hopefuls make last push for votes
Bolivia's presidential candidates made a final push for votes on Wednesday ahead of elections on the weekend set to end 20 years of socialist rule. Two right-wing candidates are leading the race for the first time since 2005 as voters desert the ruling Movement Towards Socialism party, blamed for the country's deep economic crisis, ahead of Sunday's vote. Polls show center-right business tycoon Samuel Doria Medina and right-wing ex-president Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga running neck-and-neck on around 20 percent each, with six other candidates trailing far behind. The two frontrunners wound up their campaigns with fanfares, street parades and packed rallies. Doria Medina, who owns Bolivia's Burger King franchise among other businesses, pledged shock therapy to pull the country back from the brink of default. Speaking in the predominantly Indigenous city of El Alto -- a longtime stronghold of leftist ex-president Evo Morales -- he vowed to restore dwindling supplies of dollars and fuel "within 100 days" through austerity measures. Jonathan Vega, a 25-year-old chef, told AFP he was counting on Doria Media to "restore stability." Bolivians are struggling through the country's worst crisis in a generation, marked by acute shortages of dollars, fuel and subsidized bread. A dramatic drop in gas exports has eaten into the country's foreign currency reserves, making it unable to import sufficient fuel for its needs. - Milei-style reforms - Doria Medina and Quiroga have both vowed to cut costly fuel subsidies, partly roll back Morales-era nationalizations and close loss-making public companies. Speaking in the city of La Paz, Quiroga said his first priority would be to tamp down inflation, which rose to 24.8 percent year-on-year in July, its highest level since at least 2008. The 65-year-old also threatened to close the central bank, accusing the outgoing government of using it as a "credit card," and promised to flood Bolivia's lithium-rich Andean high plains with tax-free zones to attract investment. Quiroga's vision of a "small state" has seen him compared with Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei. Alejandro Rios, a 23-year-old lawyer attending Quiroga's rally, said he believed Milei-style reforms were "the right thing for Bolivia, to get out of this crisis." The two main left-wing candidates, Senate president Andronico Rodriguez and his Movement Towards Socialism rival, former interior minister Eduardo del Castillo, are polling in the single digits. Their campaigns have been hobbled by a lack of support from Morales, who served three terms between 2006 and 2019 and attempted in vain to run for a fourth. Morales, 65, has called on his supporters to avenge his disqualification by spoiling their ballots. bur-cb/dl
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bolivia right-wing presidential hopeful vows 'radical change'
One of the front-runners in Bolivia's upcoming presidential election, right-winger Jorge Quiroga, told AFP on Friday the country was poised for "radical change" after two decades of socialist rule marked in recent years by a severe economic crisis. Quiroga, who briefly served as president from 2001 to 2002, is running a close second behind center-right business magnate Samuel Doria Medina in polls for the first round of the election on August 17. The ruling Movement towards Socialism (MAS), founded by three-term ex-president Evo Morales, is shown at rock bottom, with voters poised to punish the party over its handling of the worst crisis in two decades. Basics like fuel and food items are in short supply in the Andean nation, which is running out of the dollars it needs to import essentials. After a rally with supporters in the administrative capital La Paz, Quiroga, 65, said Bolivians faced a period of "radical change (to) regain 20 lost years" -- a reference to the Morales era (2006-2019) and that of his successor, Luis Arce (in power since 2020). Referring to MAS, which was credited with lifting many Bolivians out of poverty during a commodities boom in the 2000s, he declared: "Its cycle is over, its time is up." Quiroga, Doria Medina and even the main left-wing candidate, Andronico Rodriguez, who is polling in third, have all prescribed varying degrees of austerity to turn around Bolivia's finances. Quiroga, a supporter of libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, has advocated the deepest spending cuts. Year-on-year inflation rose to 25.8 percent in July, the highest level since 2008, driven by a shortage of dollars, which has nearly doubled in value against the local boliviano in a year. Quiroga, a US-educated former finance minister who served as vice president under dictator Hugo Banzer in the 1990s, said if elected he would "change all the laws" to attract investment, including in the energy sector which Morales nationalized in the 2000s. He also vowed a change in international alliances, breaking from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua -- close allies of the Morales and Arce administrations. jac/cb/acb
