We welcome private investment, but any company or national firm will be a partner of a venture where the result will go mainly to the Bolivian people. Of course, any investor is entitled to recover their investment and take profits. But be assured that these new functions with our partners will also be reinvested in our country for the benefit of the Bolivian people.

Friends, we have now won....I say to Aymaras, Quechuas, Chiquitaos, and Guaranis: for the first time we are going to be presidents. And I want to say to businesses, intellectual professionals, and artists: do not abandon us.

We nationalize hydrocarbons, so now the economy is improving and the fight against poverty is also improving in Bolivia.

I don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way in the '50s and '60s, but we want a democratic revolution.

Playing sports has always been my greatest pleasure. I don't smoke, I hardly drink alcohol. Sports helped get me into the presidential palace. My first position in the union was that of sports secretary.

In Iraq, [American administration] said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction endangering mankind. With this pretext, the U.S. intervened militarily, and all they did is take control over oil fields, and oil wells.

Bolivia historically made and still makes a living from natural resources. Before it was tin, but also silver, gold, and other minerals were plundered by many foreign countries. Europe after the United States.