Which Way Evo?

With the official results showing Morales with a clear majority win in the popular vote (53% according the current statistics out of the Corte Electoral), Bolivians, Bolivian social movements, the foreign press, foreign oil companies and many others are all asking the question: How will Evo govern?

First, I think the question; “Can Morales find competent people to run the government?” is getting a little silly. I get asked that by almost every foreign reporter who calls. How does one measure competence? Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was certainly able at negotiating really bad deals, behind closed-doors, with foreign energy companies. Is that competence? Tuto Quiroga was part of the government that negotiated and signed the Cochabamba water contract with Bechtel, the contract that resulted in huge overnight water price hikes. Is that competence? Both those presidents managed to kill their own people by the dozens. Is that competence?

Morales has a huge pool of competent, progressive professionals to draw on, including many whom probably would never have been willing to enter government before. In one of my meetings with the Vice President to be, Alvaro Garcia Linera, as he was considering joining the MAS ticket, Alvaro specifically mentioned that finding good and talented people was a priority and he knows where to find them.

The more interesting question is: Will Morales moderate his positions, especially on gas and oil, after he actually has to govern? To be sure, governing has a natural moderating influence on anyone. Morales could easily get bogged down in deciding whom to appoint to official positions. The foreign lenders (the IMF especially) on whom Bolivia depends for much of its national budget, will be sure to apply moderating pressures. Foreign oil producers will be threatening legal actions. Santa Cruz will be threatening self-declared forms of autonomy. That is a lot to deal with for any government.

Bolivian social movements are directly concerned about these pressures on Morales. They know well that whatever major changes he will be able to make he will need to make in the first three months of his presidency, when his historic mandate is still fresh.

The signals of which way Evo will go will not be seen in his rhetoric (“anti-Yankee” rhetoric just seems his natural discourse) or in acts of symbolism (I am sure we can count on Bolivia’s new President to take the oath of office with neither a coat or a tie.).

If you want to see which way Morales and MAS will govern, keep your eye on what he does on gas and oil. Will he quickly tell foreign oil producers holding current contracts with Bolivia that all those contracts are now going to be renegotiated from scratch? Will he put Bolivia’s state-owned oil company back into business exploring and exploiting underground reserves?

He ought to do both those things, both because they are smart economics for the nation and because he was given a very clear mandate to do so. Yet, it is on these choices that the foreign pressure will be brought most heavily to bear in the coming weeks.

Which way Evo? Wait and see.