Manfred Reyes Villa

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Manfred Reyes Villa (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 is the Governor of Cochabamba, Bolivia

In 2000 Reyes Villa was an actor 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 enaugh 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.^{[citation needed]}

Large uprisings occurred in Cochabamba early 2007 with thousands of supporters of President Evo Morales in Cochabamba demanding his resignation. The clashes were triggered after 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.^[1]

For more details on this topic, see Cochabamba social unrest of 2007.