Editing Bolivia (section)

====1997–2002 General Banzer presidency====
In the 1997 elections, General [[Hugo Banzer]], leader of the [[Nationalist Democratic Action]] party (ADN) and former dictator (1971–1978), won 22% of the vote, while the MNR candidate won 18%. At the outset of his government, President Banzer launched a policy of using special police-units to eradicate physically the illegal coca of the Chapare region. The [[Revolutionary Left Movement (Bolivia)|Revolutionary Left Movement]] (MIR) of Jaime Paz Zamora remained a coalition-partner throughout the Banzer government, supporting this policy (called the Dignity Plan).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://chakana.nl/files/pub/AssiesSalman_2005_Ethnicity-and-Politics-in-Bolivia.pdf |title=Ethnicity and Politics in Bolivia |publisher=Ethnopolitics 4(3):269–297 |date=September 2005 |access-date=14 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724150223/http://chakana.nl/files/pub/AssiesSalman_2005_Ethnicity-and-Politics-in-Bolivia.pdf |archive-date=24 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The Banzer government continued the free-market and privatization-policies of its predecessor. The relatively robust economic growth of the mid-1990s continued until about the third year of its term in office. After that, regional, global and domestic factors contributed to a decline in economic growth. Financial crises in Argentina and Brazil, lower world prices for export commodities, and reduced employment in the coca sector depressed the Bolivian economy. The public also perceived a significant amount of public sector corruption. These factors contributed to increasing social protests during the second half of Banzer's term.

Between January 1999 and April 2000, large-scale [[2000 Cochabamba protests|protests]] erupted in [[Cochabamba]], Bolivia's third largest city at the time, in response to the [[Water privatization|privatization of water]] resources by foreign companies and a subsequent doubling of water prices. On 6 August 2001, Banzer resigned from office after being diagnosed with cancer. He died less than a year later. Vice President [[Jorge Quiroga|Jorge Fernando Quiroga Ramírez]] completed the final year of his term.