+U.S. Keeps a Wary Eye on the Next Bolivian President= Evo Morales+

Published: December 21, 2005
By JOEL BRINKLEY

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - On the campaign stump, Evo Morales liked to say that if he was elected president of Bolivia, he would become America's nightmare. After his election on Sunday, a State Department official said essentially the same thing, calling Mr. Morales "potentially our worst nightmare."

Evo Morales, the newly elected president of Bolivia, last week in Cochabamba. He has said he will reduce restrictions on coca leaf production.

The Bush administration says it fears that Mr. Morales will follow through on his promise to join Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, as an anti-American, leftist leader, while also carrying out his promise to reduce restrictions on his nation's production of coca leaf, the primary ingredient of cocaine, much of which finds its way to the United States.

Mr. Morales made an early strike on Tuesday when he told Al Jazeera television in an interview that President Bush was "a terrorist" and that American military intervention in Iraq was "state terrorism."

The administration's public stance is to wait and see what policies Mr. Morales puts into place.

At the State Department briefing on Tuesday morning, Sean McCormack, the spokesman, said the department had congratulated Mr. Morales on his victory and expressed hope for Bolivians that "with this election that they can begin to move beyond what has been a difficult period in Bolivia's political history."

"And as for the future, we'll see what kind of policies the next Bolivian president pursues and that the kind of relationship and the quality of the relationship between the United States and Bolivia will depend on what kind of policies they pursue," he said, "including how they govern, do they govern democratically and do they have a respect for democratic institutions."

The election could add to a string of difficulties for the Bush administration, which is held in low regard in many Latin American countries.

During a visit to the region this fall, Robert B. Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state, described Mr. Chávez and others with similar approaches and policies as "pied pipers of populism." State Department officials say Mr. Morales's campaign speeches appear to place him in that group, assuming he continues the same course in office as he did during the campaign. The officials declined to be identified, citing department policy.

Stephen Johnson, a former State Department official and now a senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, said of Mr. Morales, "It will be difficult for him to moderate his position because he has a political base that is a little bit more hard-line, more populist, than he is."

That base is Bolivia's indigenous population, from which Mr. Morales came. Many of those people are coca farmers in a region where chewing coca leaf and making coca tea are deeply ingrained in the culture.

In Bolivia, though, the election of Mr. Morales on Sunday is seen as a potent signal that the country has tired of the traditional and often corrupt politicians who had long been in power. Saying they were tired of old economic formulas, Bolivians not only elected Mr. Morales but also voted three main parties out of national prominence.

Mr. Zoellick and other American officials have been openly critical of Mr. Chávez, a close ally of Mr. Morales's, saying he is eroding democratic freedoms in Venezuela. Mr. Morales has not indicated any intention of doing that.

Still, he "has certainly unleashed strong expectations" among his constituents, said Peter DeShazo, another former senior State Department official who now directs the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If he is seen as too moderate and accommodating, he risks invoking the wrath of these groups that want radical change."

Several State Department officials said the primary challenge that the United States faced in Latin America was the fragility of democratic governments in the region, which makes them vulnerable to populist leaders who, they said, were almost by definition anti-American. Those leaders, the officials said, also tended to chip away at democratic freedoms.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with CNN on Monday, said: "The issue for us is, will the new Bolivian government govern democratically? Are they open to cooperation that, in economic terms, will undoubtedly help the Bolivian people, because Bolivia cannot be isolated from the international economy? And so from our point of view, this is a matter of behavior."

The State Department office that monitors drug trafficking says Bolivia produces the third-largest coca crop in the hemisphere, behind Colombia and Peru. In a report put out in March, the department said Bolivia exceeded its coca-eradication goals in 2004. Nonetheless, "coca cultivation increased by 6 percent over all." A department official said little had changed since March.

During a news conference in La Paz, the capital, on Tuesday, Mr. Morales said that he would not allow unlimited production of coca and that he would hold a referendum to determine how it should be controlled. He promised to fight drug trafficking, but he did not rescind his promise to drop support for the American-financed coca eradication program.

The primary focus of that campaign has been to eradicate coca plants in the Chapare region, where Mr. Morales is from. If restraints are lifted, "there is the potential for large-scale industrial production in the Chapare," Mr. DeShazo said. "And that would be of grave concern for the United States."

In 2004, the United States spent $150 million on coca-eradication programs in Bolivia, the State Department said. But Bolivia still produced 60,500 acres of coca plant, enough to manufacture 72 tons of cocaine. The Bush administration says, however, that it plans to give Mr. Morales every chance. A senior official is likely to be sent to La Paz to meet and congratulate the new president in the weeks ahead.

Juan Forero contributed reporting from La Paz, Bolivia,for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/international/americas/21latin.html
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Bolivia's Newly Elected Leader Maps His Socialist Agenda
Published: December 20, 2005
By JUAN FORERO

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Dec. 19 -After his decisive win in the election for president on Sunday, the Socialist indigenous leader, Evo Morales, vowed Monday to respect private property but repeated his pledge to increase state control over the energy industry and reverse an American-backed crusade against coca, the plant used to make cocaine.

Wearing his trademark black jeans and tennis shoes, Mr. Morales arrived in La Paz to begin laying the groundwork for an economic and political transformation that he says will give voice to the poor, indigenous majority that fueled his campaign. "The voice of the people is the voice of God," he said late Sunday.

Mr. Morales, 46, a former small-town trumpeter and soccer player who turned a movement of coca farmers into the country's most potent political force, stunned his countrymen on Sunday by burying seven challengers in the most important election since Bolivia's transition from dictatorship to democracy a generation ago.

Unofficial results showed that Mr. Morales won up to 52 percent of the vote to become the first Indian president in Bolivia's 180-year history, a victory that solidifies a continent-wide shift of governments to the left.

"For the first time a candidate wins with 50 percent plus 1, and it's the biggest margin between the first two finishers," said Gonzalo Chávez, an economist and political analyst at Catholic University in La Paz. "This is a democratic revolution. The voting was tremendously strong, and signifies a tremendous demand for change in Bolivia."

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, two of the continent's leading left-leaning leaders, quickly offered their congratulations, as did Chile, Spain and the European Union.

The United States tried to discredit Mr. Morales in the past by alleging ties to drug trafficking, and ended up increasing his popularity. The administration offered cautious congratulations to Mr. Morales and to the Bolivian people "for carrying out a successful election."

But American officials acknowledged that they viewed his presidency with serious concern, while insisting that they would wait to see how he actually governed.

A State Department official noted that Bolivia had experienced several years of chaos in government, "and now they have chosen a leader and still have a constitutional process." adding, "We have to respect that, whatever else Morales has said." He declined to be identified, citing department policy.

Mr. Morales's party, the Movement Toward Socialism, won nearly half the 27 seats in the Senate and up to half the 130 seats in the lower house. Unofficial figures showed the MAS, as the party is known, also won at least two of nine governorships.

Podemos, the party of Jorge Quiroga, a former president, finished a distant second. Three other traditional parties practically disappeared from the national scene.

The MAS is now poised to push through legislation tightening the terms on British Gas, Repsol YPF of Spain, Petrobras of Brazil and other foreign energy companies operating here. Mr. Morales has promised to "nationalize" the lucrative natural gas industry, not by expropriating it, but rather by expanding state control over operations, policy and the commercialization of gas.

"The government will exercise its right to state ownership of Bolivia's hydrocarbons," he said Monday.

Foreign oil companies have in the past said that financially onerous terms could prompt them to cut back on investments, which have fallen from $608 million in 1998 to $200 million last year. But on Monday, Ronald Fessy, spokesman for the Bolivian Hydrocarbon Chamber, said it was too soon to predict.

"Governments have to be seen in action, not in times of campaigning," he said. "We hope that this government will work to achieve scenarios that would lead to policies that are good for investments that this industry and Bolivia urgently need."

Mr. Morales has also pledged to reverse Bolivia's longstanding alliance with the United States in the generation-long fight against drugs, which has greatly curtailed the coca planting but has set off politically volatile uprisings by coca farmers. Mr. Morales and his followers say much of Bolivia's coca goes for traditional uses, to be chewed or used in tea, while Washington says most of it becomes cocaine.

"The fight against drug trafficking is a false pretext for the United States to install military bases," Mr. Morales told reporters on Monday.

Even with the mandate from voters, Mr. Morales is not expected to have an easy time in a country rocked by years of social protests fueled by inequality and poverty.

He will be under pressure to ensure that the country's budding exports of textiles and furniture continue, while answering to indigenous leaders who seek radical change. Some social movements have vowed to apply pressure. The Bolivian Workers Central, the country's largest labor confederation, said the government would have to expropriate private energy installations from private companies, or face the kind of protests that forced out two presidents since 2003.

"He has to make changes or he falls," Jaime Solares, the head of the confederation, said in an interview.

In the main square of La Paz, where one president was lynched on a lamppost in 1946, most people seemed tired of protests and wanted to give Mr. Morales a chance .

"We have to give him some time," said Martín Bautista, 35, a truck driver. "I feel happy because here a lot of things are about to change."

Websource:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/international/americas/20bolivia.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fInternational%2fCountries%20and%20Territories%2fBolivia
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Coca Advocate Wins Election for President in Bolivia
Published: December 19, 2005
By JUAN FORERO

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Dec. 18 - 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.

Marcos Brindicci/Reuters
Evo Morales, 46, a former coca farmer, was mobbed Sunday after winning Bollivia's presidency and receiving up to 51 percent of the vote.

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."

Websource:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/international/americas/19bolivia.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fInternational%2fCountries%20and%20Territories%2fBolivia
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Presidential Vote Could Alter Bolivia, and Strain Ties With U.S.
Published: December 18, 2005
By JUAN FORERO

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Dec. 17 - Bolivians go to the polls on Sunday with the possibility of transforming this isolated Andean country, where frequent uprisings have toppled two presidents in the past two years.

The leading candidate, Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and an ally of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, promises to exert greater state control over natural gas reserves and decriminalize the cultivation of coca, from which cocaine is made.

Polls have put Mr. Morales five percentage points ahead of the next contender, Jorge Quiroga, a former president who recommends open trade to help Bolivia extricate itself from poverty. A third candidate, Samuel Doria Medina, is a La Paz cement magnate who owns Bolivia's Burger King restaurants.

A candidate must capture more than 50 percent of the vote to win the presidency outright. If that does not happen, Bolivia's new Congress - all 157 seats in the bicameral legislature are also up for grabs - will choose between the top finishers.

The system is considered anachronistic and, in theory, an obstacle to the political ambitions of Mr. Morales, 46, who went from leader of the coca growers' union to internationally known opponent of globalization. But political analysts believe it could be politically calamitous for the Congress not to select Mr. Morales as president if he wins a plurality.

"If Evo wins by a significant difference, and a significant difference is 5 percent or above, there is nobody who can take the presidency away from him," said Eduardo Gamarra, the Bolivian-born director of Latin American affairs at Florida International University. But if the margin is tighter, Mr. Gamarra said, Mr. Quiroga could be chosen.

For the Bush administration, the prospect of Mr. Morales in the presidency is seen as a potentially serious setback in the war on drugs, one which could jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in American anti-drug, economic and development aid.

Sean McCormack, a State Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington on Thursday that the United States would take its time to evaluate its relationship with Bolivia. "We'll see what policies that person pursues," he said. "And based on that, we'll make an evaluation of what kind of relationship we're going to have with that state."

Political analysts say Mr. Morales, an adept campaigner, charged ahead in part because Mr. Quiroga failed to highlight his accomplishments as vice president and president, when he helped strike a trade deal with the United States that has stoked exports. Mr. Quiroga, an American-educated engineer, left office in 2002 with a high popularity rating.

Mr. Morales has offered few details about how he would govern. Much of his campaigning has focused on what he sees as the evils of capitalism, including the development of Colombia's natural gas reserves by foreign companies.

"On natural resources," he said in a recent interview, "we are the owners of this noble land, and it is not possible that they be in the hands of the transnationals."

Whoever wins will face a divided country in which even the majority indigenous population appears split. Many radical groups see in Mr. Morales less an indigenous stalwart than a consummate insider who could sell them out.

One senator from Mr. Morales's own party, Román Loayza, said this week that whoever won would have three months to nationalize the energy industry and press forward on rewriting the Constitution, or face crippling protests. "This is not something we are saying just to the neoliberals, but also to our brother, Evo," he said. "For that reason, he has to be ready to respond to the people."

Websource:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/international/americas/18bolivia.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fInternational%2fCountries%20and%20Territories%2fBolivia
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