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Oct. 21 (UPI) — Bolivian President-elect Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s win heralds a time of change in the South American nation that was a leading socialist state, the leaders of nine nations said on Tuesday.

Paz, 58, prevailed over challenger and former President Jorge Quiroga on Sunday in Bolivia’s first runoff election to determine its next president, and the U.S. State Department released the joint statement.

“The undersigned countries congratulate President-electRodrigo Paz Pereira on his election as president of Bolivia,” the joint statement said.

“We also commend the Bolivian people for their unwavering commitment to democracy, as demonstrated through their active participation in this electoral process.”

The statement said the “Bolivian people made their voices heard in a decisive manner.”

The outcome “reflects the will of the Bolivian people to embrace change and chart a new course for their nation and our region, signaling departure from the economic mismanagement of the past two decades.”

Paz is a centrist, while Quiroga is more conservative, and both campaigned on the platform of ending the 20-year reign of socialist presidents and government and returning Bolivia to a market-based capitalist economy.

He secured 54.6% of the 6.5 million votes cast to Quiroga’s 45.4% in the first Bolivian presidential election that did not involve a socialist candidate for the first time in two decades, according to The Guardian.

Paz was the Christian Democratic Party’s candidate, while Quiroga, 67, ran on the Free Alliance ticket. Both ran on a pro-capitalism platform.

The Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Towards Socialism) Party candidate Eduardo del Castillo obtained 3% of the vote during an initial election and did not qualify for Sunday’s runoff election.

The MAS Party has controlled both houses of the Bolivian Legislature and the presidential office for the past 20 years.

Paz said he intends to end the nation’s gas shortages and wants to encourage international investment to boost growth of the Bolivia’s private sector, the BBC reported.

His win effectively ends the MAS Party’s rule in Bolivia.

“The undersigned countries stand ready to support the incoming administration’s efforts to stabilize Bolivia’s economy and open it to the world, reinforce its democratic institutions, boost international trade and investment, and deepen its engagement with regional and global partners on a wide range of issues,” the nine nations said in the joint statement.

“We are committed to working closely with President-elect Rodrigo Paz Pereira and his government to advance shared goals of regional and global security, economic prosperity and growth that benefit all of our nations,” they added.

“We encourage Bolivia’s renewed proactive participation in addressing regional and global challenges.”

In addition to the United States, the governments undersigning the statement are Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Paz is a Bolivian senator and the son of former Bolivian President Jaime Pax Zamora, who served in that role from 1989 to 1993.

Charlie Kirk, the conservative millennial influencer who galvanized young Americans to support the GOP and was assassinated this week in Utah, was the most influential modern-day catalyst of shifting voting trends among fledgling voters, according to Republican and Democratic strategists.

Kirk founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA in 2012 at the age of 18, and it grew into a force that promoted conservative views on high school and college campuses across the nation.

“He found something among young people that none of us identified,” said Shawn Steel, a member of the Republican National Committee from Orange County who knew Kirk for nearly a decade and invited him to speak before the RNC’s conservative steering committee.

“He found an entire movement in America that conservatives were not even aware they could find. Not only that, he nurtured and created an entire new generation of conservative activists,” said Steel, the husband of former Rep. Michelle Steel. “His legacy will endure.”

The admiration for Kirk’s political organizing skills and mental acuity cut across political lines.

“Whether you agreed with him or not — and to be clear, I didn’t — he was one of the most brilliant political organizers of his generation, and probably generations before that,” said Stephanie Cutter, a veteran Democratic strategist who served as an advisor to Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris. “He could be controversial, but he struck a nerve with people who were likely disengaged in politics prior to Turning Point and built a powerful movement.”

In addition to appealing to young voters about the economic headwinds they faced as they sought to climb the career ladder and tried to buy a house, Kirk also espoused sharply conservative views.

Beyond espousing traditional conservative views — being anti-abortion, pro-gun rights and dubious of climate change — Kirk was critical of gay and transgender rights, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, saying last year that if he saw a Black airplane pilot, he hoped he was qualified. He was accused of being an anti-Semite because of repeated comments about the power of Jewish donors in the United States, and of being Islamophobic because of comments such as describing “large dedicated Islamic areas” as “a threat to America.”

Kirk, 31 and a father of two, died Wednesday after being shot in the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s assassination was the latest instance of political violence in an increasingly politically polarized country.

In June, Democratic Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, while state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife survived a shooting at their home, roughly five miles away, the same day. In 2022, a home invader bludgeoned the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). In 2017, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot during a practice session for an annual congressional baseball game. In 2011, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) barely survived an assassination attempt as she met with constituents in a Tucson strip mall.

President Trump survived two assassination attempts in 2024 as he successfully sought reelection to the White House.

Kirk’s “mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than anybody ever, to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense on campuses nationwide,” Trump said Wednesday.

On Thursday, Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn that Kirk was partly responsible for his victory in the 2024 presidential election and repeated that he would posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Turning Point USA, created a month before Kirk graduated from high school, became the new face of conservatism on college campuses and had chapters at more than 800 schools. Prominent conservatives heavily funded the group; in the fiscal year that ended in June of 2024, Turning Point reported $85 million in revenue.

Longtime GOP activist Jon Fleischman, the former executive director of the California Republican Party and the former chairman of the state’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom in the early 1990s, said Kirk was pivotal to Trump’s election.

“Charlie Kirk was probably the single most prominent and successful youth organizer in the Trump movement,” Fleischman said, adding that Kirk superseded any other GOP organizer he knew at increasing conservative prospects among young voters.

“As somebody who cut their teeth as a youth organizer, I have nothing but awe for the level of sophistication he brought to that field of work,” he said.

Support for Trump among young voters exponentially increased in the 2024 presidential election, according to data compiled by Tufts University. While President Biden had a 25-point edge over Trump among voters ages 18 to 29 in the 2020 election, Harris had a four-point advantage among this cohort last year.

“This last election was the best performance Republicans have had with the youth vote, particularly male voters, in 20 years, maybe even going back to the ’80s,” said Steve Deace, a conservative radio host in Iowa who had known Kirk for a decade.

He gave credit for that success partly to work Kirk did on the ground at colleges across the country, notably being willing to amicably debate with people who disagreed with his beliefs.

“Charlie was basically a Renaissance man who was comfortable in a lot of settings. He wasn’t hoity-toity,” he said.

Deace and others added that this moment could be a turning point for the nation’s democracy and the split between the left and the right.

“We’re going to have a real conversation about whether we can share a country or not. The answer may be we can’t,” Deace said. “We have to decide if we are capable of the fundamental differences between us being adjudicated at the ballot box…. We have to decide if we can share a country. If we truly want to, we’ll figure it out. If we don’t, we won’t. That’s the conversation that needs to happen.”

Bombastic conservative commentator Roger Stone went further, arguing that modern-day Democrats are a greater threat to the nation than terrorists, drug cartels and foreign spies.

“The rot is too deep to reverse our course with mere rhetoric,” Stone wrote to supporters. “Sept. 10, 2025 was the day we crossed the Rubicon, lost our innocence and realized only one path remains to ensure humanity’s survival. The time for American renewal is at hand, and the tree of liberty shall germinate in warp speed with Charlie Kirk serving as the martyr of our glorious refounding.”

Aug. 20 (UPI) — As protesters chanted nearby, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller visited National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday amid what the Trump administration says is a crime crackdown.

The three Trump administration officials greeted National Guard troops at the capital’s Union Station while positioned near a table containing hamburgers for the troops, PBS News reported.

“In just the past nine days, we’ve seen a 35% reduction in violent crime,” Vance told those in attendance.

“We’ve seen over a 50% reduction in robberies,” he added. “We’re seeing really substantial effects because these guys are busting their a*****.”

Vance said he wanted to thank the National Guard troops in person and hand out some hamburgers to show his appreciation for their efforts.

Hegseth said the National Guard deployments in Washington are needed to ensure residents, visitors and those who work in the capital are safe.

“The American people, the residents of D.C., deserve a safe and beautiful city,” Hegseth said. “That’s our mission.”

He called the National Guard troops “patriots who serve the country” and want to make Washington a “beautiful, safe capital.”

The National Guard troops are “proud of this mission” and making sure “law and order is established here in the capital,” Hegseth added.

He said the Defense Department is providing the resources that the troops need and working with law enforcement partners to ensure safety in Washington.

Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered and chanted near Union Station, which drew a rebuke from Vance.

He said the protesters “hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities,” according to PBS News.

Vance said he went to Union Station with Hegseth and Miller because criminal activity was very high there, which local officials deny.

Miller added to Vance’s criticism of the protesters by calling them “stupid white hippies” and said they do not represent Washington, D.C.’s residents, The Hill reported.

“We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation’s capital,” Miller said.

“All these demonstrators you’ve seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they’re not part of the city and never have been,” Miller said.

“We’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old,” he added.

Trump last week put the federal government in control of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, which has been accused of falsifying crime data. Though Trump administration officials have characterized crime in the city as out of control, in actuality, crime in the district has fallen in recent years or remained flat.

An agreement on Friday put the police department under local control, but Trump sought and received National Guard deployments from West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Louisiana.

About 1,200 National Guard troops are slated for deployment in the capital, in addition to 800 Washington National Guard troops who already are there, according to The Washington Post.