An Indigenous is Called Upon to Rule Bolivia

Two important elections in December. The year winds down and Latin America, which has always been a region of stark contradictions, drifts to the left in places where people are fed up with neoliberal/free market policies. At the same time, the liberal right gains strength in places where the free market model has succeeded in transforming primary commodities into enormous returns for an economic elite who are in a unique position to speak for the rest of the country and who also enjoy near perfect consent from the population thanks to a strangely efficient, and very complex political atmosphere where ideologies are blurred and are almost unrecognizable.

A few days ago, on December 18th, Bolivians voted in what seems to be a first-round presidential victory for an indigenous coca farmer named Evo Morales, member of the MAS party (Movimiento Al Socialismo). No doubt, Evo Morales has won the support of the indigenous communities (which together constitute a majority in the country), of farmers, of the politically dispossessed and of the marginalized in general, in other words, of the majority. The runner up, Quiroga, a white, pro-business, pro-US candidate, received around 30 percent of the vote. The difference in votes is so striking that even if Morales turns out not to have received the majority of votes, congress will have no choice but to ratify the leftist’s presidential victory. What are the important aspects, what are the lessons to be learned?

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in Latin America (one hears the word “Bolivia” almost as synonymous with “poverty”) and in the last year it has witnessed a series of street mobilizations that have paralyzed the country and even caused the resignation earlier in the year of the conservative president Carlos Mesa. Economists would refer to the situation in Bolivia as “highly unstable”. It seems obvious that Bolivians, rather than being genetically inclined to instability, are just not happy with their situation, and they have voiced this dissatisfaction by taking it to the streets and protesting (more or less peacefully). I should mention that this sort of participation is an efficient, a very legitimate, and a very democratic recourse. Evo Morales, for better or for worse, seems to represent this majority who is fed up with what’s going on in the country. So, the obvious first conclusion is that the policies espoused by the recent governments are not well received by Bolivians, and these same Latin Americans have recognized the ballot box as an acceptable path towards addressing some of these issues. That’s democracy.

The second conclusion is that we are witnessing another example of the failure of neoliberal policies in Latin America. The privatization of water, the privatization of natural gas, the opening of the country to foreign investment without restrictions, the abandonment on behalf of the state, the criminalization of coca farming (for crying out loud!). All of which merely contributes to the exacerbation of displacement, to the loss of cultural identity, to the loss of jobs, of livelihoods, etc. It’s clear that the people who are affected negatively by these policies, which favor the market over human beings, have spoken, and it should be seen by everyone as something positive. Obviously in the eyes of the economic world, this is a disaster, and all these “Indians” on the street represent a clear and present danger to the stability of the region. In fact, most of the world sees it that way. Even in Chile, the Bolivian protests were portrayed by the media as Absolute Chaos, a clear sign of Bolivian backwardness, Chileans are famous for their “ninguneos”. It might be more plausible that for the first time since its invention, the electoral system in Bolivia has actually worked. Evo Morales clearly represents the majority.