Se siente! Evo es presidente!

'Se siente! Evo es presidente!' ('It's evident! Evo is president!')
Posted: December 22, 2005
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today

Evo is president!'' was the chant of thousands of Bolivians who took to the streets on Dec. 18. For the first time ever in Bolivia, an Indian leader had won the national vote for the presidency of this impoverished and deeply traditional Indian country. Aymara Indian farmer and longtime political leader Evo Morales, 46, won the presidency of Bolivia by the strongest margin of any politician in decades. Thus, one of South America's most indigenous nations has turned a milestone, with an Indian population turning out to vote en masse for their preferred Indian leader. Morales, who took 54 percent of the vote as of Dec. 21, won the early capitulation of right-wing candidate Jorge Quiroga, his major opponent. With a clear majority, Morales is assured the presidency; and in any case, his political party, the MAS (Movement Toward Socialism), holds the largest block of seats in the Congress. He will take power in January 2006. In a country with some 60 percent indigenous (largely Aymara and Quechua), the election of an Indian leader as president is a development akin to the toppling of South Africa's apartheid regime. Bolivia's 9 million inhabitants - 3.6 million voters - are the poorest in the hemisphere. Their annual income of $2,600 per capita compares poorly with Argentina ($10,200) or Brazil ($7,600). These are the voters who provided Morales a major mandate, including 78 seats in the Congress, but who also have high expectations of his presidency. What has never been quite the case before, an Indian nation-state with an Indian president and government directly represented at the United Nations, is soon to be reality. Morales' election is perceived as a serious headache by the United States. A steadfast opponent of the U.S.-led globalization of South American economies, Morales defied the odds that any single candidate could win a decisive majority. He is the first one to do so in a long time, stirring passionate emotions in a long-downtrodden population whose society is quickly educating its youth to leadership potential. A true grass-roots hero, Morales is necessarily radical in a country where as late as the 1940s, an Indian's eyes could be cut out for the mere act of attempting to learn how to read. Morales' victory buttresses rejection to the U.S.-style trade pacts in the region. His past leadership of movements to demand a stronger national ownership of Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves and other natural resources, leave no doubt where he stands. His vocal opposition to privatization is very popular with the majority of Bolivians. It will likely discourage some foreign investment but will also likely steer some of the country's wealth to the poorest sectors of society. While Morales might worry U.S. policy-makers, who are hard put to know how to react to the effervescence of his popular support, the growth of his movement follows two decades of economic belt-tightening as Bolivia tried to service a debt amounting to some 60 percent of its gross national product. The turn to the left by the voting masses in Latin America, who are now highly literate, follows more than a decade of worsening poverty. Bolivia is no exception, where the appropriation of national resources only ushered in deeper misery for the highly marginalized lower-middle and poor sectors. Morales has led the movement against U.S. efforts to eradicate the production of coca. In this, too, he has depth as he represents the Andean Indian approach to coca as a sacred plant, while apparently repudiating its processing into cocaine and the corruption of narco-trafficking in general. Morales, a coca farmer himself, resonates with a cultural reality long dismissed or ignored by U.S. policy analysts: the spiritual and medicinal relationship with the coca leaf and the plant itself, which is profoundly imbedded in the Andean Indian consciousness. People are quite aware how nearly 40 years of the so-called ''war on drugs'' has mostly generated huge profits for the narco-traffickers while seriously corrupting institutions and disrupting communities over a whole hemisphere. Morales also led the national Indian movement to successfully pressure for higher taxes on natural resources exploited by multi-nationals. As recently as two days before the election, Morales chastised the United States for the mode of ''parasitic businesses that grow richer at the expense of the poor.'' He called himself the United States' ''worst nightmare'' and has challenged President Bush's policies in Iraq and Latin America. How much of this posture will be moderated, as political rhetoric gives way to pragmatic reality of governance, is yet to be seen. It is hoped that Morales and U.S. policy-makers will seek a respectful and nuanced relationship rather than heightening tensions that would upset international relations. No doubt, Morales' political history will scare away American and, perhaps, some European foreign investment. Nevertheless, in the energy sector, Bolivia will diversify its development portfolio. Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest exporter of oil, is quickly stepping up to invest in the region's energy infrastructure. Morales' first major move will be to contract with Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., to replace Texas-based ExxonMobil Corp. and another dozen multinational companies up to now dominant in Bolivian exports. The new accord would be more beneficial for the impoverished nation, which could boost its social spending. It is the kind of move made possible by the growing presence of Venezuela in South American politics and which would solidify the Morales victory with its wide base in the population. Venezuela's record-level revenues from high oil prices will likely fortify gas pipelines and build oil refineries in Bolivia. President Hugo Chavez, 51, has energy investment programs within the Caribbean and with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Even in the United States, Venezuela is reaching out in a major campaign aimed at building direct relations with America's poor underclass. Among the most serious challenges for the new grass-roots Bolivian president will be pressure from large corporations such as ExxonMobil and the BG Group, in negotiations with the government over new hikes to gas and oil fees. The companies charge that the government won't honor its bilateral investment-protection agreements. Messy international lawsuits will likely follow. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is among the pragmatists currently influencing Morales' education in global finance. The importance of foreign investment and of making good international agreements is a common subject. Nevertheless, Morales is expected to request forgiveness on Bolivia's crippling $4.9 billion international debt from the Inter-American Development Bank and other lending agencies. Morales is not a moderate by U.S. standards; however, within Bolivia he represents an Indian national approach that seeks to build coalitions with other, non-Indian sectors of society. This makes him a moderate national democratic socialist who will favor the Native and poor agricultural sector and who would nationalize major industries without paralyzing the country's economy. But he is not a fundamentalist in the mode of other Indian and white leaders who threaten profoundly dangerous social divisions. The Indian people, while highly collective at some levels of community life, are also highly entrepreneurial and the mode of most families includes small business enterprises. Morales is a leader whose movement has now toppled two administrations within Bolivia. In this round he has gained hold of the helm. We congratulate president-elect Evo Morales on his national victory in Bolivia. May he remain true to his Aymara cultural convictions and help his people improve their lives following centuries of land theft, human rights abuse and neglect. To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.indiancountry.com/ © 1998 - 2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved