Jorge Quiroga

Infobox_President | name=Jorge Quiroga


term_start=August 7, 2001
term_end=August 6, 2002
predecessor=Hugo Banzer
successor=Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada
birth_date=birth date and age|1960|05|05
birth_place=Cochabamba, Bolivia
dead=alive
death_date=
death_place=
spouse=Virginia "Ginger" Gale Gillum de Quiroga
party=Social and Democratic Power
order=76th President of Bolivia
vicepresident=Vacant

Jorge Fernando "Tuto" Quiroga Ramírez (born May 5, 1960) was President of Bolivia from August 7, 2001 to August 6, 2002. He is seen as politically conservative. He is a 1981 graduate of Texas A&M University, with a degree in industrial engineering, becoming the first Aggie head of state.cite news|title=Leasing The Rain|author=William Finnegan|date=2002-04-08|publisher=The New Yorker|url= http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/020408fa_FACT1?020408fa_FACT1 Retrieved on Feb. 15, 2007] He went on to be a self-declared "corporate yuppie" working for I.B.M. in Austin, Texas. He and his American wife, Virginia then moved back to Bolivia. Quiroga was elected vice president of Bolivia in 1997 running on the Nationalist Democratic Action ticket with former dictator Hugo Banzer. At 37, he was the youngest vice president in Bolivia's history. He became President when Banzer resigned because of aggravated health problems (he died a year following his resignation). Quiroga assumed office as acting president on July 1, 2001 and was sworn-in on August 7, to complete Banzer's five-year mandate.Soon after becoming President he told a reporter from the "New Yorker" "We [Bolivia] will be the vital heart of South America." Believing that gas exports would lift the economy, that a long anticipated transcontinental highway connecting Brazil to Chile would be built passing through the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, and that fibre-optic cables would soon be laid. He blamed Bolivia’s lack of economic progress on hypocrisy on free trade in the United States and Europe, saying "Bolivia is the most open economy in Latin America. Meanwhile, American and European farm subsidies, along with tariffs on textiles and agricultural products, make it impossible for Bolivia to sell its exports in the Global North. They tell us to be competitive while tying our arms behind our backs." When asked about the Bolivian Water Wars of 2000, he said “A lot of things certainly could have been different along the way, from a lot of different actors. The net effect is that we have a city today with no resolution to the water problem. In the end it will be necessary to bring in private investment to develop the water."

Quiroga ran for President in his own right in 2005 election, as the candidate for a new right-of-center coalition known as Social and Democratic Power (PODEMOS), which included the bulk of Banzer's former ADN organization. His main opponent was the leftist Evo Morales of the Movement Towards Socialism. Morales won the election and Quiroga finished a distant second place, receiving 28.6% of the vote.

Quiroga was born in Cochabamba. He holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University and a master's degree in business administration from St. Edward's University. He has also received the World Leader of Tomorrow Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He has worked for IBM and as a consultant for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

ources

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4532866.stm BBC profile]
*CIDOB|america_del_sur/bolivia/jorge_quiroga_ramirez
* [http://www.thebatt.com/media/paper657/news/2002/04/10/FrontPage/Bolivian.President.Honored-517621.shtml thebatt]
* [http://www.coha.org/2005/12/08/bolivia%e2%80%99s-precarious-upcoming-election/ Bolivia's Precarious Upcoming Election-Council on Hemispheric Affairs]

ee also

*List of presidents of Bolivia
*History of Bolivia
*Politics of Bolivia