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With 51 Percent, Evo is President-Elect In Bolivia
He is giving his first speech to the Bolivian people as, for all intents and purposes, the president-elect. Eighty-eight percent of the votes are counted, and with 51 percent he is the president-elect. He no longer needs any help, is not dependent on the National Congress; EVO MORALES AYMA is the new leader of a country that voted for him massively and is now celebrating, everywhere, in every street and plaza it can find.
A bit of the story…
“With this government, discrimination will come to an end, the xenophobia we have been living through will come to an end… we are going to work to to bring an end to the neoliberal model.” So said Evo Morales as part of his speech at the headquarters of the Six Federations of Coca Producers of the Tropic of Cochabmba.
Among the thanks he gave to his people, to the various social sectors, to his hometown (Orinoca), Evo also reminded al that the National Electoral Court did a dirty job by allowing many Bolivians to be denied their right to vote today. “Today, the Bolivian people have given us one more surprise,” he said, “with these elections, despite all the obstacles.”
He also thanked the Red Unitel television network, owned by Santa Cruz businessmen, for having run a dirty campaign against him… and his people, who applaud at every pause, shouted and booed at the collegues at that media outlet.
“When I was on my way here, a few comrades that monitor the media told me that we now have 51 percent,” explained Evo. He later asked for prudence in waiting for the final results to come in to the offices of the National Electoral Court.
Evo’s party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), now has 78 congressmen. They need 79 to be the majority in the two houses of the National Congress. Of course, there is a congressman-elect from Felipe Quispe’s party… but this fight isn’t over yet…
Now, we’re going to let Evo finish in peace. Starting tomorrow, he will have much work to do, not to mention next January 22…
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/12/18/212437/57
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A Perspective on Today’s Election in Bolivia
By Luis A. Gomez and Jean Friedsky
Special to the Narco News Bulletin
December 18, 2005
The clock has officially wound down. Today, Sunday, December 18, 2005 Bolivians will go to the polls to elect their new president and Congress. The contest between Evo Morales and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga has become one of Latin America’s most anticipated elections in years, viewed as a battle between Bolivia’s widespread anti-imperialist sentiment and the neoliberal Washington–friendly status quo. Whether Evo will win the presidency has thus been cast as the baseline for determining the path on which Bolivia will proceed.
This is an over-simplified perspective, and a damaging one. So, as is custom here on Narco News, we would like to set the record straight.
First, a glimpse of what some social movements have been up to in the past few months:
* On December 4th, the Cochabamba-based Coordinating Committee for theDefense of Water and Life, along with more than 40 organizations from across the country, founded the National Coordinating Committee in Defense of Water and Basic Services, an unprecedented coalition with tremendous potential.
* Members of the Guarani nation issued an denunciation of Spanish oil company Repsol last month for the environmental destruction the company has caused on Guarani land and are embarking on a campaign to force the company to respect local laws and international standards.
* Just last week, Alteños (residents of the indigenous city of El Alto, next to La Pasz) convoked a national Popular Workers Summit, pledging to unite in the fight for “nationalization without indemnity,” a National Popular Assembly, and several other workers’ demands. (They concluded that no political party represented these interests and issued the next government a 90-day deadline for proving their worth before mobilization begins).
Though they have passed under the international radar, these developments show that many on the Bolivian left have not been immersed in electoral fever. These groups continue to shape their own future through grassroots organizing, rather than entrust their dreams to a political party.
As for the election itself, a quick review of what’s being said. If you have read even one article on Bolivia in the past month, you have heard the following:
* Evo Morales (seen by some as Che Guevara’s reincarnation) is an indigenous former llama herder who may or may not be receiving direct funding from Chavez, but whose radical campaign trail rhetoric scares Washington.
* Evo’s political party, MAS (Movement Towards Socialism in its Spanish initials), is representative of Bolivia’s leftist majority and plans to legalize coca and reverse Bolivia’s neoliberal economic course.
* The MAS’ inability to fulfill its own campaign promises could cause its downfall.
Separating out the lies (Chavez’s supposed funding) and the trite simplifications (Evo=Che), we are left with mis-representations easily exposed by examining MAS’s own proposals. For example:
* Coca: Evo has not said his government will unilaterally decriminalize coca. On the contrary, they have agreed to respect all previous international accords on coca eradication, including those signed with the United States.
* Economic Policy: A recent in-depth report published by the reputable Bolivian NGO Center for Labor and Agrarian Studies (CEDLA in its Spanish subtitles) on the three leading political parties’ governmental plans finds that “the electoral proposals of MAS, Podemos (Tuto’s party) and UN (National Unity Party) maintain a neoliberal economic political orientation that favors the accumulation of transnational capital and the growth of the primary-export sectors, with the state’s role being to guarantee the reproduction of private capital—fundamentally transnational—in Bolivia’s strategic economic sectors.”
* Gas: MAS has stated that it will respect the Hydrocarbons Law signed on May 18, 2005—the controversial bill that sparked the May/June mobilizations of this year (the infamous Second Gas War). As for the MAS’s “nationalization” promises, CEDLA’s investigation finds that all three parties’ proposals “seek to veil their interest in maintaining, with certain differences, the monopoly control by the transnational corporations of the hydrocarbon resources of the country.”
The possible downfall of a MAS government could actually result from its complying with its own agenda, rather than its inability to do so.
The campaigns have been laden with mud-slinging and politics-as-usual. Tuto and the Right denounce Evo as a narco-trafficker who will run the nation into the ground. The rightwing campaign ads and slogans have racist and condescending undertones. And figuring out the exact governmental plan of Podemos is a challenge; getting access to an interview with someone who can to talk about their programs is virtually impossible.
The wide-spread current mistrust of the MAS by the social movements who, through their street protests, handed Evo his chance to be president in 2005 on a golden platter is only occasionally discussed in the media. Ignored is that fact that their criticism is grounded in the MAS’ own actions.
Read More
http://narconews.com/Issue39/article1512.html
By Luis A. Gomez and Jean Friedsky
Special to the Narco News Bulletin
December 18, 2005
The clock has officially wound down. Today, Sunday, December 18, 2005 Bolivians will go to the polls to elect their new president and Congress. The contest between Evo Morales and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga has become one of Latin America’s most anticipated elections in years, viewed as a battle between Bolivia’s widespread anti-imperialist sentiment and the neoliberal Washington–friendly status quo. Whether Evo will win the presidency has thus been cast as the baseline for determining the path on which Bolivia will proceed.
This is an over-simplified perspective, and a damaging one. So, as is custom here on Narco News, we would like to set the record straight.
First, a glimpse of what some social movements have been up to in the past few months:
* On December 4th, the Cochabamba-based Coordinating Committee for theDefense of Water and Life, along with more than 40 organizations from across the country, founded the National Coordinating Committee in Defense of Water and Basic Services, an unprecedented coalition with tremendous potential.
* Members of the Guarani nation issued an denunciation of Spanish oil company Repsol last month for the environmental destruction the company has caused on Guarani land and are embarking on a campaign to force the company to respect local laws and international standards.
* Just last week, Alteños (residents of the indigenous city of El Alto, next to La Pasz) convoked a national Popular Workers Summit, pledging to unite in the fight for “nationalization without indemnity,” a National Popular Assembly, and several other workers’ demands. (They concluded that no political party represented these interests and issued the next government a 90-day deadline for proving their worth before mobilization begins).
Though they have passed under the international radar, these developments show that many on the Bolivian left have not been immersed in electoral fever. These groups continue to shape their own future through grassroots organizing, rather than entrust their dreams to a political party.
As for the election itself, a quick review of what’s being said. If you have read even one article on Bolivia in the past month, you have heard the following:
* Evo Morales (seen by some as Che Guevara’s reincarnation) is an indigenous former llama herder who may or may not be receiving direct funding from Chavez, but whose radical campaign trail rhetoric scares Washington.
* Evo’s political party, MAS (Movement Towards Socialism in its Spanish initials), is representative of Bolivia’s leftist majority and plans to legalize coca and reverse Bolivia’s neoliberal economic course.
* The MAS’ inability to fulfill its own campaign promises could cause its downfall.
Separating out the lies (Chavez’s supposed funding) and the trite simplifications (Evo=Che), we are left with mis-representations easily exposed by examining MAS’s own proposals. For example:
* Coca: Evo has not said his government will unilaterally decriminalize coca. On the contrary, they have agreed to respect all previous international accords on coca eradication, including those signed with the United States.
* Economic Policy: A recent in-depth report published by the reputable Bolivian NGO Center for Labor and Agrarian Studies (CEDLA in its Spanish subtitles) on the three leading political parties’ governmental plans finds that “the electoral proposals of MAS, Podemos (Tuto’s party) and UN (National Unity Party) maintain a neoliberal economic political orientation that favors the accumulation of transnational capital and the growth of the primary-export sectors, with the state’s role being to guarantee the reproduction of private capital—fundamentally transnational—in Bolivia’s strategic economic sectors.”
* Gas: MAS has stated that it will respect the Hydrocarbons Law signed on May 18, 2005—the controversial bill that sparked the May/June mobilizations of this year (the infamous Second Gas War). As for the MAS’s “nationalization” promises, CEDLA’s investigation finds that all three parties’ proposals “seek to veil their interest in maintaining, with certain differences, the monopoly control by the transnational corporations of the hydrocarbon resources of the country.”
The possible downfall of a MAS government could actually result from its complying with its own agenda, rather than its inability to do so.
The campaigns have been laden with mud-slinging and politics-as-usual. Tuto and the Right denounce Evo as a narco-trafficker who will run the nation into the ground. The rightwing campaign ads and slogans have racist and condescending undertones. And figuring out the exact governmental plan of Podemos is a challenge; getting access to an interview with someone who can to talk about their programs is virtually impossible.
The wide-spread current mistrust of the MAS by the social movements who, through their street protests, handed Evo his chance to be president in 2005 on a golden platter is only occasionally discussed in the media. Ignored is that fact that their criticism is grounded in the MAS’ own actions.
Read More
http://narconews.com/Issue39/article1512.html
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