Jaime Paz Zamora

Jaime Paz Zamora (born 15 April 1939) is a former Bolivian politician who served as the 60th president of Bolivia from 1989 to 1993.

It was a mutually beneficial pact, since Siles offered everything the MIR lacked (experience and legitimacy with the working class stemming from the 1952 Revolution) while Paz, in turn, provided Siles what he did not have: the support of the university students and younger intellectuals.

Jaime Paz Zamora studied in Belgium and became an ardent supporter of left-wing/progressive causes in the turbulent 1960s.

Exiled by dictator Hugo Banzer in 1971, he co-founded in Chile the Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR), originally a member of the Socialist International.

Soon, the MIR attracted the support of a large portion of the Marxist intelligentsia, especially university students.

Upon returning to Bolivia in 1978, Paz's MIR cemented an alliance with the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario de Izquierda of former President Hernán Siles.

The result was the formation of the Unidad Democrática y Popular (UDP).

The UDP participated in the June 1978 elections, with Siles at the head of the ticket and, by all accounts won a plurality.

The vote was annulled, however, due to the discovery of massive fraud on behalf of the government endorsed candidate, General Juan Pereda.

New elections were conducted in 1979.

They, too, turned out to be a fiasco, as the UDP's Hernán Siles, with Paz as his vice-presidential running mate, finished first at the ballot box, but without attaining the 50% majority necessary for direct election.

Thus, it was left to Congress to determine the next Chief Executive, as stipulated in the Bolivian Constitution.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the lack of democratic practice in Bolivia at that time) Congress could not agree on any candidate, no matter how many votes were taken.

Eventually, Congress proclaimed as temporary President the head of the Senate, Dr. Wálter Guevara, pending the calling of yet a new round of elections in 1980.

Ominously, the ultra-right wing of the Bolivian military began to intimate that it would never stand for the installation in the Palacio Quemado of the "extremist" Siles and Paz, but the 1980 campaign continued unabated.

In April, the small rented plane in which Paz and a delegation of UDP politicians were traveling crashed in the Altiplano near La Paz, with the resulting death of all on board except the Vice-Presidential candidate.

The plane had belonged to a company owned by Colonel Luis Arce, who would surface as Minister of Interior in the upcoming (and quite ruthless) military dictatorship of Luis Garcia Meza.

No one doubts that it was an assassination attempt.

In any case, Paz recovered from his burns and resumed campaigning, buoyed by the increasing support received in the aftermath of the "accident."

The winner of this third vote in three years was, yet again, the Siles Zuazo-Paz Zamora formula.

The two would have been sworn in, were it not for the July 17, 1980, coup of General Luis García Meza, which brutally interrupted the democratic process.

With the reputation of the armed forces badly damaged by the excesses of the 1980–82 dictatorship, the only way out was a hasty retreat.

He also served as the 32nd vice president of Bolivia from October 1982 to December 1984 during the presidency of Hernán Siles Zuazo.

Paz fled to exile, but returned in 1982, when the military's experiment had run its course and the Bolivian economy was on the verge of collapse.

In October 1982 the results of the 1980 elections were upheld to save the country the expense of yet another vote, and Siles was sworn in, with the MIR's Jaime Paz as his vice-president.

The economic situation was dire indeed, and soon a galloping hyperinflationary process developed.

Siles had great difficulty in controlling the situation.

In all fairness, he received scant support from the political parties or members of congress, most of whom were eager to flex their newly acquired political muscles after so many years of authoritarianism.

The unions, led by the old firebrand Juan Lechín paralyzed the government with constant strikes.

The 1982-85 hyperinflation would end up being the fourth largest ever recorded in the world.

At this point, the MIR (led by Paz) disassociated itself from the regime (1984), deserting the sinking ship when Siles' popularity sank to an all-time low.

By 1985, the government's impotence prompted Congress to call early elections, citing the fact that Siles had been originally elected five years before.

Having broken with Siles, the MIR this time ran on its own, led by the ubiquitous Paz as its presidential candidate.

Paz finished a respectable third, and the MNR's Víctor Paz Estenssoro was elected president (1985–89).

During the 1985–1989 period, the MIR underwent major ideological transformations, with Paz and Oscar Eid advocating a break with Marxist notions and with any call for class-based struggle.

These were the days of Perestroika, and the handwriting seemed to be on the wall (so to speak) for the Eastern European totalitarianisms.

The MIR's programmatic shift entailed some major defections (most notable of which was that of Antonio Araníbar), but at least the party emerged more united and cohesive than it had been.

It also had increased its electoral appeal considerably.

Paz once more ran for president in May 1989.

He finished third, although not far behind the top two vote-getters, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and former dictator Hugo Banzer.