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There are a number of candidates for the Bolivian elections this August, of whom one of the front-runners appears to be Samuel Doria Medina.

The Associated Press says that he wants to be "Bolivia's first right-wing president elected in 20 years" and that he wants to be friends with Trump and emulate Javier Milei, which seems pretty right-wing. On the other hand, he's also apparently the vice president of the Latin American branch of the Socialist International (only the Spanish page lists the vice president), which would mark him as pretty left-wing, to say the least.

What is the political orientation of Medina?

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Apparently, center-right from European optics, not very different than typical center-right parties like the German CDU/CDS - from an American perspective, he would be a Democrat.

While he was a member of different leftwing organizations when he was young, he is a billionaire now, and he proposes breaking with the economic model that the ruling party, MAS, has been applying for the last 20 years under its presidents Evo Morales and Luis Arce. I haven't been able to find any kind of outrageous declarations from him, either about immigrants (which I presume are not an important problem in a poor country like Bolivia), abortion, trans and gay rights, or other of the usual boogiemen of the alt-right; rather, he seems quite moderate in his declarations.

Actually, opposition from more extreme right-wing candidates has tried to harm his campaign by saying that he approves gay marriage, or that he would alter the Bolivian Constitution (link in Spanish) to grant free abortion - abortion is legal under rape, incest, or health risks. Medina has denied wanting to change anything related to abortion, while he has espoused views favorable to acknowledge social rights towards same-sex couples (link in Spanish), such as granting inheritances, nursing sick-days to attend a partner and such, even stopping short of legalizing gay marriage. So he seems quite progressive in social issues, especially for a country where even the left is quite conservative, being a quite religious country.

He has mentioned Trump and Milei (link in Spanish) in his interviews, but only to say that he plans to talk with everybody Bolivia can make deals with (so, he plans to disalign Bolivia with the China-Iran-Russia axis he feels they have been placed in), but also he says he plans to open Bolivia to foreign investors. Bolivia has extensive mineral resources, including some of the largest reserves of lithium, critical for making electric batteries, so China is definitely interested, and Medina says he's willing to talk with them.

“Nosotros no vamos a idealizar las relaciones”, lanzó. “Con los países que podamos tener un intercambio, un beneficio, vamos a tener relaciones”, recalcó, mencionando a Estados Unidos, China, Rusia y la Unión Europea.

("We're not going to idealize relationships", he proclaimed. "With those countries we can have trade, some profit, we're going to establish relationships", he emphasized, mentioning the USA, China, Russia, and the EU.)

Similarly, his only reference to Milei is that he has managed to cut Argentina's crippling deficit, and he plans to do the same. Bolivia is running a 10%+ deficit that is endangering the country's prospects. Leaving it to run amok, it could lead to a disastrous hyperinflation explosion, and Medina says, "you have to act fast in that kind of crisis". So, while he is a pro-private business, pro-foreign investments, and he has said he's going to dismantle several state businesses, he looks like your average economy-focused rightwing politician. Currently, scarcity of products, including fuel, is the first and foremost concern of Bolivians, and Medina is leaning heavily on the local economy policy so that he does not hemorrhage too many voters from the right on conservative social issues.

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    Good putting into perspective. That still makes for a rather explosive contrast to his opponents, in a very poor country, where the large, and very poor, Indigenous population seems to hold the view that the government fleecing "the rich and big corporations" is the secret to sound economic management. That's how Morales got and held the job, and screw it if he has to cheat a bit to keep it too.
    – Italian Philosopher
    Commented 15 hours ago
  • @ItalianPhilosopher Like Chavez or Castro, Morales did score a few great hits in his first years as president, such as halving extreme poverty. When you have a country with an unequality worth of medieval Russia or prerrevolutionary France is not surprising that any idiot who promises fleecing the rich and powerful not only gets elected, but actually delivers progress. I mean, their rich and corporations really needed a good fleecing... the problem is how to proceed from then on, since there was no plan B.
    – Rekesoft
    Commented 2 hours ago
  • Well, I agree that South America in general has a massive inequality issue that needs addressing. Trouble is most of the attempts in that direction have generally been very naive, dogmatic and economically inept and have tended to kill the golden geese. About the only clever one, off the top of my head is the Bolsa Familia thingy under Lula 1.0 in Brazil, a cash benefit to the very poor. You can fleece, a bit, under-taxed folk. But at some point you need to grow the economy as a whole. Otherwise, even if you don't flame out right away like Chavez, you end up with Argentina instead.
    – Italian Philosopher
    Commented 1 hour ago
  • @ItalianPhilosopher Lula is a very different type of politician than the rest on that list. He's more on the line of Pepe Múgica.
    – Rekesoft
    Commented 58 mins ago

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