Manfred Reyes Villa, the mayor of the central city of Cochabamba, has announced that he will be running in Bolivia’s 2025 presidential elections.
Reyes Villa made the announcement on January 5, at an event which took place in the Félix Capriles Stadium in the city. According to El popular, he entered the stadium in a tractor and drove around the athletics track, while thousands of fans chanted messages of support for the presidential candidate. The mood was reportedly festive, with folk music, balloons, Bolivian, and Bolivian flags.
Some supporters also sang Freddie Mercury’s iconic “Ay-Oh!” in support of Reyes Villa, who received significant online attention after he appeared at the Bolivian music festival Non Stop The Madness in February 2024, and led Mercury’s iconic call-and-response tune onstage.
Reyes Villa, who has previously said that he is neither left nor right leaning, will be leading the Bolivía Súmate (Bolivia Join Us) party. As things stand, the governing Movimiento al socialismo (Movement for Socialism or MAS) party – which has been divided by a heated internal power struggle between current president Luis Arce and former president Evo Morales for several months – has still not formally announced its presidential candidate.
According to news agency EFE, the main opposition to MAS is the “unity bloc” which former presidents Jorge Quiroga and Carlos Mesa are seeking to establish alongside businessman Samuel Doria Medina and detained governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho.
Reyes Villa has rejected any possibility of joining the “unity block”, saying: “If they talk about unity, they should unite with whoever comes in first place, and we are going to come in first place. We are going to win the election, and we are going to be the government, rest assured,” he said.
The “unity block” has not rejected any possibility of cooperation with Reyes Villa, who unsuccessfully ran for president in the 2002 and 2009 elections.
This week, Reyes Villa discussed his plans for the future of Bolivia on television channel red uno. He said, “Before talking about the economic plan for the country, we must talk about order in the country. The current economic-political model is worn out, and we must move towards a mixed economy that seeks economic sovereignty.”
He added, “My logic is to export, export, and to bring foreign currency into the country,” specifically citing lithium as a way to generate income, though he highlighted his desire to do so “without submitting to the impositions of the International Monetary Fund.”
Reyes Villa also expressed his intention to put former president Evo Morales, who was accused of statutory rape and kidnapping earlier this year, on trial. He said, “If I become president, Evo Morales must submit to justice. He has a serious problem related to the issue of statutory rape, and that cannot go unpunished.”
In 2009, Reyes Villa fled from Bolivia to the United States after the Cochabamba Prosecutor’s Office issued a warrant for his arrest. The warrant was issued after Reyes Villa and his wife, Patricia Avilés missed a hearing regarding charges of fraudulent sale of private property. At the time, Reyes Villa was the subject of at least six lawsuits, according to rfi.
In 2013, he was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia after being found guilty of “anti-economic conduct” during his tenure as the prefect of Cochabamba. He approved consultancy plans for a highway project despite significant irregularities, which led to an economic loss of 1.6 million bolivianos (approximately USD $230,000), according to Opinión.
Reyes Villa returned to Bolivia after then interim President Jeanine Áñez took over following Morales’ resignation in 2019, according to la Razón. He was then elected as the mayor of Cochabamba, and avoided going to prison after his case was suspended, as reported by El Deber.
In 2022, he was sentenced to a month in prison for an expropriation that occurred over 25 years ago. As explained by Europapress, the expropriation involved a sum of USD $10,000, and Reyes was found to have committed a breach of duty for mishandling the transaction, including failure to immediately pay the agreed sum for the expropriated land.
Bolivia’s 2025 presidential election is scheduled to take place on August 17, with the possibility of a presidential runoff on October 19. Voting is compulsory for all citizens over the age of 18.
The post Manfred Reyes Villa: The mayor convicted of “anti-economic misconduct” running to be Bolivia’s next president appeared first on Latin America Reports.
