Bolivia: Radical Leftist Leader Elected
Scroll down for background article on Bolivia's new hero.BOLIVIA ELECTS ELECTS A PRESIDENT WHO SUPPORTS COCA FARMING
Evo Morales, a candidate for president who has pledged to reverse a campaign financed by the United States to wipe out coca growing, scored a decisive victory in general elections in Bolivia on Sunday.
Mr. Morales, 46, an Aymara Indian and former coca farmer who also promises to roll back American-prescribed economic changes, had garnered up to 51 percent of the vote, according to televised quick-count polls, which tally a sample of votes at polling places and are considered highly accurate.
At 9 p.m., his leading challenger, Jorge Quiroga, 45, an American-educated former president who was trailing by as much as 20 percentage points, admitted defeat in a nationally televised speech.
At his party's headquarters in Cochabamba, Mr. Morales said his win signaled that "a new history of Bolivia begins, a history where we search for equality, justice and peace with social justice."
"As a people who fight for their country and love their country, we have enormous responsibility to change our history," he said.
Mr. Quiroga's concession signaled that he was prepared to step aside and avoid a protracted selection process in Congress, which, under Bolivian law, would choose between the top two finishers if neither obtained at least 50 percent of the vote.
"I congratulate Evo Morales," Mr. Quiroga said in a somber speech.
The National Electoral Court had not tabulated results on Sunday night, though Mr. Morales echoed the early polls and claimed to have won a majority.
His margin of victory appeared to be a resounding win that delivered the kind of mandate two of his predecessors, both of whom were forced to resign, never had.
Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian-born political analyst from Florida International University in Miami, said Mr. Morales could be on his way to becoming "the president with the most legitimacy since the transition to democracy" from dictatorship a generation ago.
A Morales government would become the first indigenous administration in Bolivia's 180-year history and would further consolidate a new leftist trend in South America, where nearly 300 million of the continent's 365 million people live in countries with left-leaning governments.
Though most of those governments are politically and economically pragmatic, a Morales administration signals a dramatic shift to the left for a country that has long been ruled by traditional political parties disparaged by many Bolivians.
The victory by Mr. Morales will not be welcomed by the Bush administration, which has not hidden its distaste for the charismatic congressman and leader of the country's federation of coca farmers.
American officials have warned that his election could be the advent of a destabilizing alliance involving Mr. Morales, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, who has seemed determined to thwart American objectives in the region.
In comments to reporters after casting his vote in the Chapara coca-growing region on Sunday , Mr. Morales said his government would cooperate closely with other "anti-imperialists," referring to Venezuela and Cuba. He said he would welcome cordial relations with the United States, but not "a relationship of submission."
He also pledged that under his government his country would have "zero cocaine, zero narco-trafficking but not zero coca," referring to the leaf that is used to make cocaine.
Mr. Chávez, who has met frequently with Mr. Morales, expressed confidence that Bolivia would turn a new page with the election.
"We are sure what happens today will mean another step in the integration of the South America of our dreams, free and united," he said earlier in the day from Venezuela.
The election, which was marked by personal attacks, pitted two fundamentally different visions for how to extricate Bolivia from poverty.
While Mr. Quiroga pledged to advance international trade, Mr. Morales promised to squeeze foreign oil companies and ignore the International Monetary Fund's advice.
Mr. Morales enjoyed strong support in El Alto, a largely indigenous city adjacent to the capital, La Paz, where voters said they had tired of years of government indifference.
"The hope is that he can channel our needs," said Janeth Zenteno, 31, a pharmacist in El Alto. "We have all supported Evo. It is not just what he says. It is that this is his base and he knows us."
For Javier Sukojayo, 40, a teacher, the election could signal a transformation of Bolivia into a country where the poor have more say.
"It has been 500 years of oppression since the Spanish came here," said Mr. Sukojayo, who counts himself as indigenous. "If we are part of the government - and we are the majority - we can make new laws that are in favor of the majority."
BOLIVIA'S HERO VOWS TO BREAK U.S. SHACKLESAfter yesterday's presidential election results, South America has its first indigenous head of state, although he still has to be nominated by the Bolivian congress.
On a barren landing strip in Bolivia's mining heartland of Oruro, hundreds of people, including miners carrying dynamite charges, stir at the sight of an approaching small plane. It's a stampede by the time it lands, as the crowds rush down the slope to greet an emerging heavy-built man.
He is Evo Morales, a 46-year-old Aymara Indian, winner of yesterday's presidential elections and leader of a left-wing revolution that may soon engulf most of South America.
Morales is on the verge of becoming the first wholly Indian leader in Latin America.
Morales is riding a wave of anger from Bolivia's impoverished Indian majority who have not seen any benefits from years of free-market policies and the sale of the country's natural resources by a mostly white elite to huge multinationals.
In few places is the country's ingrained injustice as visible as in the arid region of Oruro, birthplace of the Bolivian trade union movement, whose tin mines have maintained the state for decades, while its inhabitants live in miserable mud huts.
Morales was born there, before being forced by drought to move to the region of Chapare, where he later emerged as the leader of the coca farmers, launching his political career.
Morales's first stop in Oruro is Uncía. Jumping on a tractor and trundling slowly towards the main town square, he is followed by a long caravan of vehicles and by dynamite explosions in substitution for fireworks.
Some 3,000 Indians listen intently and in a combative mood. 'We're determined to wrest control over our resources and our lives after the efforts to eliminate the Indians from the period of the Spanish colony. We will bury American imperialism!' declares Morales amid shouts of 'El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!' (The people united will never be defeated!)
'We're desperate. He's the only one who can change this terrible economic model,' says miner Juan Mamani, 45.
'On 18 December we'll crush the traitors who have sold our resources and lied to the people. Morales is our brother and we trust him, but he should beware of not delivering on his promises,' says another miner, dynamite strapped to his helmet.
To correct Bolivia's innumerable wrongs, Morales has pledged to secure indigenous rights by rewriting the constitution in an assembly to convene next summer.
'Indians actively took part in Bolivia's independence in 1825, but were excluded from its foundation, and since then have been second-class citizens. We were condemned to extinction but managed to organise ourselves,' Morales tells The Observer at 4am at the regional coca farmers' headquarters in Cochabamba.
Morales wants to nationalise Bolivia's huge gas reserves, the continent's second largest after Venezuela, currently in the hands of multinational companies. 'We will renegotiate all contracts - they are illegal, since congress has never ratified them,' he says.
'The state will recover the property of its natural resources, but we are open to foreign investment in exchange for a share of the business.'
But it is his intention to legalise coca, a religiously symbolic crop for Indians and the primary ingredient of cocaine, with the aim of industrialising productions so it can be made into food and medicinal products, that has caused the most international waves.
Bolivia is the world's third-largest cocaine producer and Washington wants coca crops eradicated.
Most Bolivians feel that, however imperfect Morales and his MAS (Movement to Socialism) party may be, they remain their only hope.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Aymara Indian stronghold of Achacachi, north of La Paz. 'We don't trust Morales. He's surrounded by the same people who have ruined Bolivia and plays according to their rules,' says Eugenio Rojas, the mayor.
'Morales hasn't got Indian thoughts, he comes from a Marxist tradition. He simply wants to become President and we tell him to go ahead because there's no other choice.'
I wonder how long it will be before there is an assassination attempt
against him? Sorry. That's right. The US and CIA don't do things like that
...