Manfred Reyes Villa

Manfred Reyes Villa (born April 20, 1954) is a Bolivian politician, who was mayor of Cochabamba four times and ran for presidency in 2002 against Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. He founded and leads the Nueva Fuerza Republicana (New Republican Force) political party. He was also elected as the Governor of Cochabamba, Bolivia

In 2000 Reyes Villa played a role in the Bolivian Water Wars of 2000.

In 2002, Reyes Villa led the polls (with circa 41%) during the initial months of the presidential race, but lost votes and ended up in third place. Lozada was eventually elected, with the support of Reyes Villa, Jaime Paz Zamora and other minor political leaders forming an alliance in order to have enough votes in the congress for Sanchez de Lozada to become president, but was forced to resign the next year due to massive riots and demonstrations in major cities of Bolivia.

After the resignation of Carlos Mesa, Lozada's successor, Reyes-Villa looked poised to run for president in the December 4, 2005 elections. However, after a recommendation by David Greenlee, the American ambassador to Bolivia, he rallied behind centre-right candidate Jorge Quiroga.

Large uprisings occurred in Cochabamba early 2007 with thousands of supporters of President Evo Morales in Cochabamba demanding Villa's resignation. This uprising was made up of poor people. The clashes were triggered when the occupants of the city could no longer take the destruction that was going on outside their homes.

Villa allied with conservative opposition on issues surrounding the reform and rewriting of the Bolivian constitution and called for greater autonomy from the central government.

Further information: Cochabamba social unrest of 2007

Evo Morales tries to put guilt on Reyes saying he was a key member of the General Garcia Meza coup in 1981, which installed a brutal dictatorship. When he was only an insignificant soldier who was assigned by the government to protect Garcia Meza and he had the obligation as he was among the best soldiers in the military He is currently charged with fraud by the Morales government but has escaped to the United States.

Later however, he shed his uniform and tried his hand at selling real estate under the business name of MAREVI (an acronym made up of his name's initials). He then ran a night club, "Hollywood", in partnership with a successful Bolivian-Hawaiian nightclub empresario, Joe Camacho, who owned a lucrative nightclub in Hawaii, "The Pink Cadillac". After selling out his interest in the nightclub, Manfred found financial success shortly after he began selling real-estate in the USA.

In 1993 Reyes Villa was elected to his first of four terms as Mayor. Despite ever-present vague charges of corruption. Reyes Villa became a popular figure. After having lived in the United States he came back to Bolivia with great ideas and made a poor filthy city into what today is Bolivias most advanced city construction wise. What used to be paths of dirt became highways. the bridges made of wood that allowed five donkeys to cross at a time became monumental bridges like the ones reyes-Villa saw in miami. Cochabamba quickly became known as the garden city and reyes Villa took the name of "Bon-bon" translating to a Sweat good and charming man.

He ran for presidential election on 6 December 2009, coming second with 26% of the vote.