in 1884. After his presidency He was succeeded by his first cousin, Gregorio Pacheco Leyes, an opposition candidate. A bitter dispute between the two occurred for commercial reasons shortly after Campero handed over power. Campero had demanded that Pacheco deliver the dividends produced by the Guadalupe mine that both had owned in a commercial partnership. This event was followed by the country's press due to the political consequences that this dispute implied for the Pacheco government. Two currents of thought were formed: one in favor of Campero and the other of Pacheco. The confrontation led to a judicial ruling which forced Campero to remain detained in his hacienda for a short time, with the courts later ruling in favor of Pacheco. Death and legacy After these events, Campero retired into private life and died in Sucre on December 11, 1896. His wife would die two years later. A proponent of rearmament and reinsertion into the war against Chile with an eye to recovering the lost territories, Campero was opposed in this endeavor by his vice-president, the Conservative Arce. Arce was linked to Chilean monetary and financial interests and favored an "accommodation" with Santiago, essentially advocating the surrender of the Litoral in exchange for investment and perhaps a promise to obtain a port through previously Peruvian but now Chilean-occupied at Arica. Campero soon accused Arce of treason and exiled him precisely to Chile. Although as president Campero tried to rule in an apolitical manner, he gravitated increasingly toward the Liberal party of Eliodoro Camacho, joining it after he left office in 1884. He is best remembered as the founder of the most stable era of Bolivian politics, with regular elections and rare and brief coups. The status quo he helped create would last until the 1930s, although within the framework of a plutocratic and severely restricted version of democracy, in which only white or mestizo propertied elites could vote. References 1813 births 1896 deaths 19th-century Bolivian politicians Bolivian Freemasons Bolivian generals Bolivian military personnel of the War of the Pacific Defense ministers of Bolivia People from Tarija Presidents of Bolivia