>It is interesting to note that our current president, the historian Carlos Mesa, is not affiliated with any political party. He joined forces with Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada ("Goni"), and as a result, he became the vice-president - but it seems that he remained independent of Goni's party (MNR).

This is an interesting story. It reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt in some ways.

Apparently, noone in politics really liked Teddy Roosevelt. They (the Republicans) gave him a Vice President job to shut him up, a job which at the time usually meant the end of a career.

This was in 1900. In 1901 president McKinely was assassinated, and Teddy took over.

In 1904 he was re-elected.

Since he didn't serve two full terms, he could have run again. But he didn't and let Taft run for the Republicans, who was elected.

But Teddy later decided that Taft was a jerk-off and that in 1912 he'd run against Taft. And he did, as a member of the Progressive Party.

He didn't win the election, but he spanked Taft and the Republicans hard, letting Woodrow Wilson walk off with the victory.

Carlos Mesa could have an interesting career ahead of him if he keeps this up.

But I did see something on the Wikipedia about trying to annex some land back from Chile, and its been said that if he fails at this he'll probably be over thrown:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Mesa

Is that likely?