GONI (in a humorous vein)
By: Irving Alcaraz - 26/07/2026
Guest columnist.Share:
Goni possessed a sense of humor that, when applied to politics, functioned like a nuclear bomb, or like the Strait of Hormuz, which, for all practical purposes, amounts to more or less the same thing. His political rivals can attest to this, as he often left them stunned and without plausible responses, wielding this rare weapon in Bolivian society where solemnity usually masks a lack of intelligence. Goni unleashed this humor, sometimes from his own sources and other times from others, also on himself, revealing that he had no qualms about publicly exposing and even exaggerating his flaws—a characteristic of intelligent and self-assured men.
Humor was a constant companion in his daily life and, of course, in his election campaigns, which, incidentally, he never lost. On one occasion, when asked whether he was a left-wing or right-wing politician, he replied, quoting Cantinflas, "I'm neither left nor right, but quite the opposite."
When reality presented a result that contradicted his reasoning, and someone pointed it out to him, he would reply: “I don’t like what you’re saying at all; it must be true.” Humor with realism, we might say.
At another point, when asked if his poor Spanish would harm him as a candidate, he replied that he didn't think so, because in Bolivia everyone spoke like him, that is, in poor Spanish, especially those who have another mother tongue, which, apart from being a witty answer, is true.
Already in exile, and having learned that rumors of his death were circulating in Bolivia, he said, "The news about my death is a bit exaggerated," like Mark Twain. And he was already over 90 years old. He recently turned 96. Which means his sense of humor is still with him.
To avoid entering a minefield, we won't recount here the jokes he made about his political opponents, but those he made about himself were memorable, like when he described himself as someone "incapable of chewing gum and walking at the same time." This would happen when his collaborators presented him with a technically complex project, which he wanted simplified as much as possible so he could present it to the Bolivian people. "If I don't understand it, nobody will," he would say, before introducing the joke about chewing gum and walking. After the obligatory laughter and discussions about the topic at hand, Goni would make an observation, usually insightful, that would change the course of the meeting.
Not everything about his presidency was humorous, of course, but this isn't the place to describe his tireless and extremely demanding work ethic. Suffice it to say that he reviewed laws, decrees, and official messages line by line and word by word, modifying them as many times as necessary until they conformed to what he considered right for Bolivia. His exhausted staff breathed a sigh of relief when he finally put the finishing touches on his work, often well past midnight, with the phrase: “Well, let's leave it at that. Perfection is the enemy of good.”
There was an episode that eloquently illustrates what humor meant to Goni: When the comedian Peter Travesí, founder of the Tralalá Show group, died from a cardiovascular accident that went untreated, the news visibly affected him. Travesí was only 33 years old when the unfortunate event occurred. Upon hearing the news, Goni sat in an armchair in his garden for a long time, downcast and pensive. When asked what was wrong, he simply replied, as if speaking to himself: "Bolivia...what a fate."
Goni wasn't friends with Peter Travesí, but he had been with him on a television interview program, which also featured, among others, the singer Zulma Yugar. It was election season. When Goni entered the scene, the program had already begun. The host introduced the newcomer to the participants one by one. When he was in front of Peter, he asked him, "Do you know Peter Travesí?" Goni, shaking the comedian's hand, replied with a smile, "Of course, he lives off me," alluding to the jokes Peter Travesí made about him in his theatrical performances, imitating his Americanized way of speaking. They both laughed heartily. That was all. But it's possible that the incident went beyond mere circumstance.
In private, that is, when he met with his closest collaborators, and even more so when he was one-on-one with any of them, his philosophical vision of Bolivia, of history, and of life was born within him. He believed, and surely must still believe, perhaps even more deeply now, in the power of humor, proverbs, and poetry as attempts to synthesize the human soul. Perhaps that is why he improvised a prayer: the Lord's Prayer, adapted to that historical moment, at the close of his first presidential campaign in the esplanade of San Francisco in La Paz.
And perhaps that same spirit animated him when he envisioned the capitalization of public companies based on the peasant tradition of land ownership through the "share-sharing" system, as it's known in the western part of the country, or "share-sharing," as it's known in the east. As everyone knows, with this system, a peasant contributes his land to a company, and an investment partner provides the capital, the plow, the labor, and the management, ultimately splitting the harvest equally. In short, capitalization with a Bolivian soul. Not to mention Popular Participation and the Educational Reform. The only fundamental difference between the capitalization of public companies and the traditional Bolivian system was that, in the former case, the profits of Bolivian landowners were distributed among the elderly, the most vulnerable sector of society. Wasn't that the best idea that could have been adopted? Well, that's debatable, but only if you're not old, Goni would say. His humor often had a touch of melancholy.
Perhaps Goni used humor as a form of catharsis, in the face of the magnitude of the problems a country burdened by poverty had to confront. Today, when dark clouds obscure the horizon, perhaps we need a little humor. Regarding this kind of perspective, Albert Camus wrote: “Imagination consoles us for what we are not, humor consoles us for what we are.” It's hard not to agree with those words. If Goni reads these lines, he surely will.
«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».