Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada

Who is Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada?

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada y Sánchez de Bustamante, familiarly known as "Goni", is a Bolivian politician, businessman, and former President of Bolivia. A lifelong member of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, he is credited for using "shock therapy", the economic theory championed by then Harvard University economist Jeffrey Sachs. This measure was used by Bolivia in 1985 to cut hyperinflation from an estimated 25,000% to a single digit within a period of 6 weeks. More broadly, he is credited with having engineered the restructuring of the Bolivian state and the dismantling the state-capitalist model that had prevailed in the country since the 1952 Revolution.

Sánchez de Lozada was twice elected President of Bolivia, both times on the MNR ticket. During his first term, he initiated a series of landmark social, economic and constitutional reforms. Elected to a second term in 2002, he resigned and went into exile in the United States of America in October 2003 after violent protests related to the Bolivian gas conflict in which 58 protesters, soldiers and policemen died. In March 2006, he resigned the leadership of the MNR. Bolivia has unsuccessfully been seeking his extradition from the US to stand a political trial for the events of 2003.