As formally announced on Saturday (and leaked on Friday), Tuto Qurigoa selected his running mate for the December Elections. María René Duchén will be the VP candidate for the citizen’s group Democrático Social (Podemos). Even if her name doesn’t ring a bell, many will recognize her as a newscaster for the television station ATB.
After Rene Joaquino’s withdrawal as the candidate of the now-defunct Frente Amplio, Quiroga was unable to convince the Potosi mayor to join his citizen’s group. With the selection of Duchén, Quiroga appears to be going harder after the middle class and other urban residents’ votes. It was important for him to select a perceived “non-politician” for the slot. For the second straight election cycle, a major television personality will be on the ticket for one of the front-runners (Carlos Mesa was a P.A.T. newscaster).
Duchén hails from Santa Cruz. The Quiroga-Duchén ticket is the third pairing that has been confirmed. The others: Evo Morales – Alvaro Garcia Linera (MAS) and Samuel Doria Medina – Carlos Dabdoub (UN)
Comments (4)
It is impressive to see the lack of qualified individuals available to work in government positions.
Journalists? former soccer players? Bolivia is in a real crisis of leadership.
I see, some of these people might be qualified, but the key word is “some”, not many.
I was surprised to see that Wikipedia doesn’t have anything on María René Duchén.
Maybe I too have a chance of beeing part of these elections, I too am a Journalist…Its sad to see the obvious lack of professionals in our country…I dont meand Mrs. Duchén is not a proffessional, all I know is that I respect her work as a journalist (absolute transparent and responsible work), but I fear and question her political capabilities. This race just keeps getting more and more pathetic.
As I mentioned here:
http://www.barrioflores.net/weblog/archives/2005/08/over_before_it.html
Bolivian politics require a recognizable name and Tuto needed someone who was perceived as being independent and not from the political class.
That’s interesting that many of your colleagues in journalism are being picked for political posts. Do you think that one has to look at her past work to see if it favored someone like Tuto?
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Bolivia: Tuto’s VP Candidate
Eduardo of Barrio Flores writes that conservative presidential candidate, Tuto Qurigoa has selected María René Duchén, from Santa Cruz, as his running-mate.
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