Боливия президенті Эрнан Силес Суасо: Өмір және саяси жолы

President of Bolivia variously in the 20th century

Hernán Siles Zuazo (21 March 1914 – 6 August 1996) was a Bolivian politician who served as the 46th president of Bolivia twice nonconsecutively from 1956 to 1960 and from 1982 to 1985. He also briefly served as interim president in April 1952, and as the 27th vice president of Bolivia from 1952 to 1956.

Hernán Siles was the illegitimate son of the last Republican Party president of Bolivia, Hernando Siles Reyes and Isabel Zuazo Cusicanqui. Siles was raised by his mother. His half brother Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas was president for five months in 1969. In 1931 Siles graduated from the American Institute in La Paz. He served in Bolivian army and was decorated for injury sustained while fighting in the Chaco War of 1932–35. After the war he finished San Andres University with a degree in law. Siles was married to Maria Teresa Ormachea del Carpio and had three daughters, Marcela, Ana Maria and Isabel. During the MNR's first 4 years in the office, the government instituted far reaching reforms, including the establishment of the universal vote, nationalization of the largest mining concerns in the country, and the adoption of a major agrarian reform. In 1956 Estenssoro left the office, as the Bolivian Constitution forbade a sitting president from running for another consecutive term. Siles, his logical successor, easily won the elections of 1956 and became President of the Republic on 6 August 1956.

The first Siles' administration was more contentious and difficult than revolutionary Estenssoro's had been. During this time MNR began to fragment along personal lines and due to growing disagreements over policy. The economy was in deep trouble, as food and mineral production had plummeted; consequently, inflation soared, and the United States conditioned any further aid and support on the adoption of an economic program of its own prescription (the so called Eder plan) in late 1956. Siles accepted these conditions, receiving North American aid in return for cutting government expenses and social programs. Siles also had to tackle the difficult issue of disarming the worker and miner militia members who had fought in the 1952 Revolution and who had been allowed to keep their weapons. They had served as a useful counterbalance to the possibility of a conservative or military coup against the Revolution, but were by now serving the growing ambitions of the head of the Bolivian Workers' Center (COB) Juan Lechín. Meanwhile, the Falange Socialista Boliviana party schemed to topple the MNR from power, causing a rather disproportionate repressive backlash that diminished MNR's (and Siles') popularity.

After the end of Siles' term in 1960, Estenssoro again ran for president in 1960 elections and, upon being elected, sent Siles as ambassador to Uruguay until 1963 and as ambassador to Spain (1963–64). In 1964 Siles broke with Estrassoro over the latter's decision to run for another consecutive term. Siles initially supported the November 1964 coup d'état by vice president, General René Barrientos and army chief Alfredo Ovando — but was later exiled when it became apparent that the military intended to manipulate 1966 electoral results to perpetuate itself in power. Except for a five month interlude during which his half brother held the presidency, the armed forces remained in control of the Presidential Palacio Quemado until 1982. In 1971 Siles opposed the right wing coup of general Hugo Banzer, prompting an irreversible break with Estenssoro, who supported the coup. In 1971 Siles formed the Leftwing Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario de Izquierda, MNRI), beginning a steady leftwards drift.

After the 1978 democratic opening, Siles returned to Bolivia and formed a grand alliance of the left with the Revolutionary Left Movement, the Communist Party, and others. Together, they formed the Democratic and Popular Union (UDP), which triumphed in the 1978, 1979, and 1980 general elections, mostly as a result of a serious erosion of support for Estenssoro. The 1978 election was annulled due to massive fraud in favor of the official military candidate, General Juan Pereda, though exit polls showed Siles would have won handily had the election been conducted honestly. The 1979 contest remained inconclusive because no candidate received 50% of the vote, and Congress elected Wálter Guevara a temporary president. Siles finished first in 1980, but came up short of a majority. Days before Congress was due to convene to choose a winner, the army launched the bloody coup of 17 July 1980, which installed a reactionary (and cocaine tainted) dictatorship of General Luis García Meza. Siles escaped to exile in Peru by crossing Lake Titicaca on a boat. 60 members of the army and police force sought to bring about a coup. One bright point in the Siles administration was the 1983 extradition to France of the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, known as the Butcher of Lyon. He had been living in Bolivia since the late 1950s or early 1960s, after being smuggled out of Europe with the assistance of the United States, and was often employed by the 1964–82 dictatorships as an interrogation specialist. Following his extradition he was condemned for his crimes and died in a French prison.

By 1985 the government's impotence prompted Congress to call early elections, citing the fact that Siles had been originally elected five long years before. His old rival, MNR's Víctor Paz Estenssoro was elected president, and Siles left for Uruguay, a country where he had lived before in exile and for which he held special affection. He died in Montevideo, Uruguay in August 1996 at the age of 82.