Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
The Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR ) is a political party in Bolivia, perhaps the most important in this country during the 20th century.
The MNR was originally created as a left-wing reformist party, but has moved in the course of its history considerably to the right and today represents a neo-liberal economic policies.
The MNR was founded in 1941 by Víctor Paz Estenssoro and Hernán Siles Zuazo and practiced early on a great attraction to the Bolivian Intelligencia from. Her main supporters were (except Paz Estenssoro and Siles Zuazo ) politicians like Juan Lechín Oquendo, Walter Guevara, Lidia Gueiler Tejada, Augusto Cespedes, Guillermo Bedregal and Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. The MNR came for the first time in 1943 to the political power in connection with the reformist military regime of Gualberto Villarroel López.
After the Second World War, the MNR began in 1952 at the head of the bourgeois revolution and ruled the country until a military coup in 1964. Paz Estenssoro ( 1952-56 and 1960-64 president ) and Siles Zuazo (President 1956-60 ) resulted in the universal suffrage is a nationalized the tin mines and opened an extensive program of agrarian reform.
Siles and Paz, however, the beginning of the 1960s fell out due to the political ambition of Paz Estenssoro. Important figures such as Walter Guevara Arze had left the party in the late 1950s and were - as Juan Lechín 1964 - expelled from the party. Siles formed the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario then de Izquierda ( MNRI ) and Lechín the Partido Revolucionario de la Izquierda Nacional ( PRIN ).
The years in exile deepened the intra-party squabbles. The MNR remained firmly in the hands of Paz Estenssoro, helped the dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez to power in 1971. This political move cost the party in the subsequent period with the electorate important political reputation. While the MNR under Paz more politically drifted to the right, it was only Siles Zuazo, reputation and the respect for the concerns of the 1952 revolution, he maintained, now in the Union Democrática Popular Party ( UDP) and in alliance with the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR ).
Paz Estenssoro led his MNR in the elections of 1978, 1979 and 1980, where he cut each of the third, second and second place. In 1985 he was appointed again to the president and ruled a term, until 1989 he retired from active politics. In his last term, he initiated measures to combat hyperinflation, suppressed the rights of the powerful trade unions, and had 30,000 Mineros due to the global decline of tin prices dismissed. This painful adjustment policies of the old Paz and his enterprising Planning Minister Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was known as the " New Economic Policy " and ushered in the neo-liberal policies in subsequent years.
Under Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the MNR won the elections of 1993 and continued this New Economic Policy. In the 1997 elections, the party cut its candidate Juan Carlos Durán from only the second- best power and lost the presidency to former dictator Hugo Banzer.
In the 2002 elections, the MNR in an alliance with the Movimiento Bolivia Libre (MBL ) won 26.9 % of the popular vote, 36 by 130 deputies seats and 11 of 27 Senate seats. Your Presidential Candidate Sánchez de Lozada reached its highest share of the vote with 22.5 % and was subsequently appointed by the Parliament to the President. The MNR reigned from 2002 in a coalition with the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR ). In 2003, Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign after allegations of corruption and mismanagement.
In the elections of December 2005, it reached the country only 6.5% of the vote. This result is, among others, also blamed the unsatisfactory appearance of the MNR candidate, Michiaki Nagatani Morishita. Strongholds of the MNR remained the Beni Department ( 30.1 %), the Department of Tarija ( 14.0 %) and the Department of Santa Cruz ( 11.6 %).