88 Facts About Carlos Mesa

Carlos Diego de Mesa Gisbert is a Bolivian historian, journalist, and politician who served as the 63rd president of Bolivia from 2003 to 2005.

Carlos Mesa rose to national fame in 1983 as the host of De Cerca, in which he interviewed prominent figures of Bolivian political and cultural life.

Crucially, Carlos Mesa opted not to resign from his vice-presidential post and succeeded to the presidency upon Sanchez de Lozada's resignation.

Carlos Mesa resigned in June 2005, though not before ensuring that the heads of the two legislative chambers renounced their succession rights, facilitating the assumption of the non-partisan Supreme Court judge Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze to the presidency.

Shortly after the ruling by the ICJ, Carlos Mesa announced his presidential candidacy.

However, irregularities in the preliminary vote tally prompted Carlos Mesa to denounce electoral fraud and call for mass demonstrations, ultimately ending in Morales' resignation and an ensuing political crisis.

Carlos Mesa emerged from the election as the head of the largest opposition bloc in a legislature that does not hold a MAS supermajority for the first time in over a decade.

Carlos Mesa has three younger siblings: Andres, Isabel, and Teresa Guiomar.

Between 1959 and 1970, Carlos Mesa completed primary and began secondary studies at the all-boys private Catholic and Jesuit San Calixto School in the Seguencoma barrio of La Paz.

At the age of twenty-two, Carlos Mesa married Patricia Flores Soto, though they divorced three years later.

In 1974, with the help of Universo head Lorenzo Carri, Carlos Mesa became the independent producer and host of a program on Radio Mendez.

In mid-1983, Carlos Mesa was called on to host the show, an offer he "accepted without question".

For Carlos Mesa, the omission of these two figures was "a great void in De Cerca that I will never finish regretting".

For Carlos Mesa, the festering social conflicts of twenty-first-century Bolivia necessitated a political renewal: "Paz Zamora and Sanchez de Lozada were history, their political cycle had finished, and they were prolonging it artificially and unnecessarily".

In meetings with Sanchez de Lozada, Carlos Mesa expressed this point, emphasizing that the MNR required younger generations among its ranks and suggesting himself as a possible alternative presidential candidate, an idea that the MNR shot down due to his political and economic inexperience.

An investigation carried out by analyst Carlos Mesa Valverde uncovered documents proving deposits totaling Bs6 million into the bank account of PAT starting in mid-2002 and ending in October 2003.

On 12 August 2003, the post was refounded as the Secretariat of the Fight against Corruption, which Carlos Mesa credited to be "without doubt the greatest contribution of my [vice presidential] management".

Two days after his assumption to the presidency, Carlos Mesa elevated the secretariat to the high executive level as the Presidential Anticorruption Delegation.

Carlos Mesa attributed many of the shortfalls of his anti-corruption work to a lack of cooperation from the president.

Carlos Mesa considered this a revocation of the president's promise to allow him to freely take anti-corruption measures, and the incident served to aggravate festering grievances between the two.

Sanchez de Lozada, whom Carlos Mesa describes as "the most stubborn man I have ever met", remained steadfast in his refusal to give in to social demands, causing the vice president to snap at him that "the dead are going to bury you".

Reports of the massacre of protesters, which Carlos Mesa learned from the media, definitively ruptured relations between him and Sanchez de Lozada.

Between the thirteenth and the seventeenth, Carlos Mesa withdrew to his private residence.

Carlos Mesa later recounted that the decision came from his memory of the 2001 crisis in Argentina.

Carlos Mesa's decision was met with harsh criticism by sectors still loyal to Sanchez de Lozada.

Vice President Carlos Mesa was sworn in as the 63rd president of Bolivia, assuming office through constitutional succession.

Carlos Mesa opened his inaugural address with a conciliatory tone, emphasizing that "Bolivia is not yet a country among equals".

Carlos Mesa outlined his intent to call for a binding referendum on gas exports, promised to review the privatization of hydrocarbons, and pledged to call for a constituent assembly to revise the Constitution in hopes of addressing ethnic and regional divisions.

Carlos Mesa's investiture was met with far more skepticism among the traditional parties.

Carlos Mesa's pledge to form a non-partisan cabinet devoid of participation from any political party adherents, which Mesa phrased as a "sacrifice" they would have to make, was a significant blow to their influence, described by one MNR deputy as "political suicide".

The second shock came when Carlos Mesa announced his intent to bring his term to a conclusion before 2007, as legally prescribed.

Carlos Mesa called for a "transitional" government and left Congress responsible for setting a date for new elections.

In January 2004, amid a high approval rating and broad popular support, Carlos Mesa retracted this promise and announced his intent to complete Sanchez de Lozada's term.

Carlos Mesa heeded the advice, traveling in his first full day as president to the former epicenter of the social conflicts to participate in a ceremony in tribute to the victims of the previous government's violent occupation of the city.

Carlos Mesa applauded its passage as a "historic decision" that "strengthens democracy and renews civic faith in its institutions".

On 1 February 2004, Carlos Mesa laid out his economic program aimed at reducing government waste through fiscal austerity and the imposition of new taxes on the nation's highest earners.

On that point, Carlos Mesa introduced measures that prohibited government officials from having wages higher than the president's.

The recess appointments were challenged by Congress, which filed a motion with the Constitutional Court on the grounds that Carlos Mesa had violated the separation of powers.

Carlos Mesa's campaign denounced the boycott and ramped up security at polling centers to defend against threats of violence, while the Electoral Court imposed a fine of Bs150 for those who did not vote.

Carlos Mesa hailed the results as a significant victory and a vote of confidence in his administration, later calling it "the brightest moment of our government".

Immediately following the referendum, Carlos Mesa began negotiating with Congress, whose participation was necessary to formulate and eventually sanction a law on hydrocarbons.

Carlos Mesa was adamant that the short law must be "physically separate" from any eventual hydrocarbons legislation.

Ultimately, without a party base of his own, Carlos Mesa was incapable of overcoming Congress's ability to block his policy initiatives.

Carlos Mesa further outlined that a better course of action would have been to impose his own hydrocarbons bill as a condition for withdrawing his resignation.

Carlos Mesa maintained that the country did not have the economic capacity to carry out the law and argued that the new tax should be implemented gradually, starting at twelve percent and increasing to thirty-two percent within a decade.

One of the major challenges to the Carlos Mesa government was the increasing calls for decentralization from business and civic sectors in the Santa Cruz Department.

Carlos Mesa took a different stance on the issue, announcing on 20 April 2004 his support for regional autonomy.

Carlos Mesa outlined his government's intent to address the matter through the convocation of a constituent assembly that would amend the relevant articles in the Constitution in order to provide for the decentralization of the country and the election of prefects and departmental councilors by popular vote.

On 15 April 2004, Carlos Mesa authorized an agreement with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner allowing for the sale of four million cubic meters daily of Bolivian gas for a six-month period with the possibility of renewal depending on the outcome of the July referendum.

In view of this, the Carlos Mesa administration conditioned the sale on the promise that not "one molecule" of Bolivian gas could be exported to Chile.

Carlos Mesa met with Kirchner twice more during his presidency, this time in Bolivia, once for a short discussion in July and another in October 2004.

On 14 November 2003, during the ongoing Ibero-American Summit, Carlos Mesa met privately with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos at the Los Tajibos Hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Carlos Mesa raised the maritime claim again at the Monterrey Special Summit of the Americas in January 2004.

Carlos Mesa's statements opened a rift between himself and Lagos, who expressed his "regret [for] what happened in Monterrey because these are spaces to advance on collective and multilateral issues".

Nonetheless, Carlos Mesa was received with praise by the National Congress, which declared "its strongest and most determined support" for the president.

The 35th OAS General Assembly was held in Fort Lauderdale from 5 to 7 June 2005; Carlos Mesa issued his definitive resignation on 6 June.

On 4 August 2004, Carlos Mesa and Toledo signed a letter of intent promising to analyze the joint exportation of natural gas.

On 15 March 2005, less than a week after Congress rejected his resignation, Carlos Mesa announced his intent to introduce a bill that would advance the call for general elections to 28 August, cutting short his term by two years.

Carlos Mesa was ultimately forced to suspend the event after Congress declined to attend.

Carlos Mesa's actions failed to quell the unrest and were rejected by both left-wing and right-wing sectors of the country.

The candidate next in line to succeed Carlos Mesa was Hormando Vaca Diez, the president of the Senate, followed by Mario Cossio of the Chamber of Deputies.

Carlos Mesa further noted that he would hold his position ad honorem and would not receive a salary for his work.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera described Carlos Mesa as "an excellent explainer of the maritime cause" but stated that "as a politician, internally, he is a resounding failure".

Nonetheless, in 2019, Carlos Mesa affirmed that, if asked to return as spokesman for the maritime cause, he "would do it again one, two, five, 100,200 times more".

In late September 2018, Carlos Mesa traveled to The Hague to hear the ICJ's final ruling.

Shortly after, Carlos Mesa called on Bolivians to "accept the ruling even though it seems unfair".

Carlos Mesa urged the government to respect the decision and asked that it move forward with a new policy towards Chile with the understanding that it is not obliged to negotiate.

In mid-2018, Carlos Mesa appeared as a lead contender against Morales in early voting intention polls.

MAS Senator Ciro Zabala credited this polling victory to the opposition making Carlos Mesa seem "victimized" by the Quiborax case.

On 5 October, the Revolutionary Left Front formally invited Carlos Mesa to be the party's presidential candidate in the 2019 elections.

Carlos Mesa further outlined his intention to form "a citizen movement" which would break "the exhausted cycle" of over a decade of MAS rule.

Carlos Mesa's announcement was hailed by various opposition groups, including leaders both the National Unity Front and the Social Democratic Movement, who signaled their hopes of sealing an alliance with the FRI.

One of the agreements made by Revilla and Carlos Mesa was that the latter would be free to nominate his running mate.

Carlos Mesa hailed his movement's "unquestionable triumph" and swiftly took steps to gather the endorsements of the other opposition parties for the "definitive triumph" in the runoff.

Carlos Mesa denounced the unexpected result as "distorted and rigged" and alleged "a gigantic fraud underway".

Two days later, Carlos Mesa gave his support to the transitional government but assured that his alliance would not participate in it in order to focus its attention on soon-to-be called elections.

On 8 June 2021, Anez testified before the Prosecutor's Office that Carlos Mesa had blocked the assumption of a MAS legislator to the presidency during the 2019 crisis.

Carlos Mesa called back to January 2020 when she reported to Los Tiempos that her resignation had been part of a political agreement made with Morales.

The fracturing of the opposition risked the dispersion of the vote and, though the various parties consolidated with the withdrawal of Anez and Quiroga in the final weeks and days of the election cycle, Carlos Mesa's campaign was hampered nonetheless.

Carlos Mesa came in second with 28.83 percent, having lost a significant percentage of the vote to Camacho, who came in third with fourteen percent.

Carlos Mesa conceded defeat the day after the election and noted his coalition's position as the head of the opposition in the Legislative Assembly.

In 2020, Carlos Mesa was the only presidential candidate who expressed a willingness to open a national discussion on issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and marijuana legalization.

In international relations, Carlos Mesa has opened up the possibility of good relations with any nation regardless of political ideology so long as they are in the "best benefit for Bolivia" and within the framework of "respect [for] democracy and human rights".

Carlos Mesa has advocated for the resumption of bilateral relations with the United States and the expansion of economic agreements with China and Russia.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Carlos Mesa decried the act as "imperialist" and called on the government to release an official condemnation.

Carlos Mesa has advocated for judicial reform within the country and blamed the MAS for perverting justice to the point that it has "become a danger to human rights".

On environmental issues, Carlos Mesa pledged to better guarantee the protection of the country's rainforests against external issues such as the fires that affected it in 2019.

Carlos Mesa opposes the expansion of agricultural land into protected areas but has promised to seek solutions that harmonize progress and development with environmental protection.