Revolutionary Left Movement (Bolivia)

Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR ) ( dt: Movement of the Revolutionary Left ) is a political party in Bolivia.

The MIR was founded in 1971 by Exilbolivianern in Chile, including Jaime Paz Zamora, who has to date significantly affected the fortunes of the party. In its early days the party exercised a great appeal to a part of the Marxist -influenced intellectuals, especially in the student body.

After returning from Paz Zamora from exile MIR agreed to an alliance with the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario de Izquierda ( MNRI ) Hernán Siles Zuazo of the former president, with the MIR for Unidad Democrática y Popular ( UDP) merged. This pact between the two parties offered considerable advantages for both parties: The MNRI under Siles had since the revolution of 1952 strong support among the workers and had experience in government, the MIR, however, brought the support of the university students and the young intellectuals in.

Since the late 1980s, the party has changed its course from a more socialist into a bourgeois force of a left - Catholic to a Catholic- Liberal Party. This was in 1997 significantly when the MIR coalition with Hugo Banzer joined, who had led Bolivia 1971-1978 in a bloody dictatorship, in which also the MIR party chairman Paz Zamora was incarcerated.

At the beginning of the third millennium, the MIR has largely lost its followers to other party groups. In the elections of December 2005, the MIR is no longer competed nationally as a separate party, but only as part of the party alliance Poder Democrático Social ( PODEMOS ). Jaime Paz Zamora even lost the runoff to the Prefecture of La Paz to the MNR candidate Mario Cossio.

• Bolivian party
• Social Democratic Party