12-18-05, 9:19 am

On Sunday, December 18, 2005, Bolivians will go to the polls to select their next president. Central to the election drama is the reality that while Washington may have overlooked the fact that the Cold War has been over for a decade and a half, policymakers are nevertheless continuing to apply its spirit in Latin America. The wave of progressive governments being elected across the region are not tumbling dominos; rather, they are authentic, localized responses to the poverty and underdevelopment which are painfully prevalent in the region.

Bolivia now appears poised to continue this trend, with indigenous leader Evo Morales holding a respectable lead in the most recent polls, therefore Washington’s latent anxieties continue to rise. U.S. policymakers have made no attempt to conceal their apprehension. Although recent statements have been deliberately abstract – if sometimes menacing – in the 2002 presidential elections then-Ambassador Manuel Rocha went so far as to warn that if Morales was elected even in a free and fair ballot, it would cost Bolivia all-important U.S. aid dollars. Needless to say, that ill-advised strategy boomeranged.

To begin with, the White House’s misgivings about Morales arise from his defiant rhetoric pointing to a rejection of Washington’s regional program, and his ideological attraction to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. But such concerns are born of misunderstanding and paranoia, and there is little reason to view Evo as a threat to either regional stability or U.S. national interests.

Nationalization

Morales has campaigned on the basis of legalizing coca production and nationalizing the hydrocarbon industry, two stances which fall plainly at odds with traditional U.S. policy interests. Yet if the former of the proposals may be untenable for U.S. anti-drug interests, the latter is far from an ill-conceived piece of leftist chicanery that could do the U.S. grave harm. Many Bolivians are understandably skeptical over private management of their natural resources because of past travails dating back to the colonial era of seeing their natural resources consumed abroad with no benefit to the nation’s poor. During the 1980s, the privatization of mines under President Victor Paz Estenssoro led to the dislocation of thousands of mainly tin mine workers, to such an extent that the sector’s workforce was reduced from 35,000 in the 1970s to a mere 3,500 in 2002, with their once powerful union, the COB, dealt a lasting body blow. The privatization of mines led to a precipitous drop in government revenues, and it became increasingly difficult for the state to service the country’s burdensome foreign debt and underwrite its basic responsibilities, including positively acting on social justice issues.

That experience left a bitter taste in with many Bolivians, particularly among those directly affected, and likewise among those urban-dwellers who witnessed large migrational flows that further jammed urban slums. Most of these so-called “relocated miners” subsequently were forced to take marginal jobs in the informal sector, and some – like Morales himself – ended up cultivating coca leaves, an ancient Andean medicinal staple, but also the raw material from which cocaine is refined.

The privatization of hydrocarbons took place without any consultation with the Bolivian public; in spite of the fact that the opposition to the measure was so fierce that a peasant revolt culminated in the overthrow of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003 on grounds that he tolerated venal practices and had authorized troops to open fire on workers and campesinos who had blocked state highways.

Thus, when Evo speaks of reasserting national control over natural gas and other hydrocarbons, his message resonates with a large sector of the Bolivian electorate whose poverty would go undiminished by any potential windfall from the gas industry.

Morales’ Credentials

Many have sought to discredit Morales on the basis of character, alleging his involvement in drug trafficking and terrorism. But while these casually-flung charges spring from the brutally harsh political environment in which he now finds himself, they have never been substantiated despite tireless efforts by powerful and resourceful adversaries. Even his mortal enemies, civic leaders from the province of Santa Cruz in the eastern part of the country, who comprise the richest families in Bolivia, have not come up with any credible information could that tarnish Evo’s candidacy.

Other foes, especially in Washington, have questioned Morales’s political legitimacy on the basis of his alleged close relations to Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. And while Evo’s ideological affinity with these Washington pariahs is well known, the only reason that such relationships could be seen as worrisome is if these firebrands took it upon themselves to brief Morales on how to survive the asphyxiation tactics of a very determined Uncle Sam.

As far as Morale’s relationship with Hugo Chavez, if it is in fact as strong as his adversaries claim, this should not worry Washington, since it does not pose a national security issue, and in terms of policy-relevance, it is akin to President Fox’s putative close ties to President Bush which are consistently confirmed by grinning photo-ops, but not much policy pay-off. With Venezuela’s elections monitored and internationally validated by the OAS and other bodies, President Chávez is a legitimate hemispheric leader, and his human rights record is no worse and his commitment to democracy is no less firm than other Latin American leaders. Whatever ties Morales chooses to have with Castro or Chávez, he couldn’t possibly be of any threat to the U.S., and thus, whose clubhouse he visits is frankly none of Washington’s business. If Evo were allowed to win, instead of proceeding to try to undermine a legitimately elected president, the U.S. instead should rejoice in the triumph of democracy in one more Latin American country as the result of a free and fair vote, and for once constructively work with a left-leaning leader to help resolve the underlying social and economic issues that propelled him into office.

The Future is Cloudy

In Bolivia’s case, however, Morales’s broad popular support and his predictable victory in a clean election would only mean that the electorate is mature enough to support a candidate that it hopes will stand up for their country’s interests. But there are snares ahead. If he reneges on fulfilling his commitments to the voters, he risks being thrown out of office by his enraged indigenous followers. But even before that, if no candidate gains over 50% of the votes in the initial ballot, in an ensuing congressional runoff that body selects the future head of state from the two candidates who have received the most votes.

Therefore, while polls by La Paz daily, La Razon, indicate that Morales is clearly in the lead, a number of obstacles must be overcome before he could assume the presidency. This could be the most dangerous moment for Morales and Bolivia. One can recall the CIA’s unsuccessful plan to bribe Chile’s legislators to vote for Radomiro Tomic – the second-place Christian Democrat candidate in 1970 – instead of Socialist Salvador Allende, which was thwarted only after the former learned of the plot to prevent Allende from taking office and conceded his defeat. That memory has to linger in Morales’ thoughts, and the question remains: will the CIA once again be unleashed to try to prevent an electoral outcome unpleasing to Washington?

From Council on Hemispheric Affairs