Happy New Year from Los Yungas

They call it the most dangerous road in the world. Hey, only a couple dozen buses go over the steep edge every year, so maybe it is an exaggeration. And as long as you don’t look out the window the thousand foot precipice and the just-less-than-a-car-width road won’t bother you at all.

Happy New Year from Los Yungas! From the snow-covered mountains of La Paz to a steamy jungle in three hours. We did it by bus. The more valiant do it by mountain bike, just a bad handbrake cable away from, well, not your favourite tourist experience.

Thanks to everyone for your readership, interest, and comments in 2005. Bolivia promises another interesting and unpredictable year ahead and we’ll do our best to cover it. Meanwhile, best to you and yours from The Democracy Center!

And a thank you to my kind readers who caught an earlier Spanish error in the text above, now fixed.

Wall Street Journal Spins a Bolivian Fairy Tail

Last week the Wall Street Journal weighed in on Bolivia’s elections, with a fairy tail of a piece. The article below by Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s (“All About Evo”) correctly cites the Cochabamba water revolt as the spark that set Bolivia’s anti-´Washington Consensus politics into high gear. She then relies on totally discredited five-year-old spin from the PR staff of former President Hugo Banzer to explain what happened. It is actually embarrassing, really.

This just proves how utterly wrong writers can be when they try to paint themselves as experts about places they have never been. It also doesn’t say much for the journalistic standards of the Wall Street Journal. Below is my letter to the editor of the WSJ and then the original article.

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Dear Editor,

The role of economic globalization in Bolivia’s recent presidential election is certainly worthy of debate. However, it also worthy of a debate based on actual facts, as opposed to the unfortunate misrepresentation of the facts included in Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s recent WSJ article (“All About Evo”, 12-23-05).

O’Grady is quite correct in suggesting that the citizen revolt against water privatization in 2000, in which the Bechtel Corporation was kicked out of the country, was the spark that ignited a string of events that led to the election of Evo Morales as President earlier this month. That makes her twisting of the facts surrounding the water revolt all the more serious.

First, the reason that citizens revolted against Bechtel had nothing to do with coca farmers, as O’Grady suggests, and everything to do with Bechtel raising water rates for the poor an average of nearly 50% overnight, and in many cases by much more. Second, it was not the citizens of Bolivia who rioted but the government. A former dictator, Hugo Banzer, responded to peaceful protests by sending 1,200 national police to take over the country’s third largest city. An army sharpshooter, caught on camera, shot an unarmed 17 year old in the face and killed him.

These well-documented facts, and others, may not lend themselves to the ideological myth that O’Grady seeks to market, but they are facts. They are also a good part of the reason that Bolivians are justifiable skeptical of the suggested wonders of the Washington Consensus formula of privatization.

Jim Shultz
Executive Director
The Democracy Center
Cochabamba, Bolivia

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All About Evo
Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2005
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

Sunday's election of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia is more bad news
for liberty in Latin America. Winning on an anti-market, anti-trade and
anti-investment platform, Mr. Morales' victory does not bode well for a
nation already impoverished, backward, isolated and desperately in need of
economic growth.

The role of Fidel Castro and his apprentice, Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez, in Bolivian politics is no less discouraging. There is some concern
that Mr. Morales may be coached to attempt a Chavez redux in Bolivia,
consolidating power in a constitutional assembly set for July and destroying
his political competition under the guise of legality. Whether what is left
of Bolivia's fragile democracy can survive a Morales presidency with Chavez
as the president's patron remains to be seen.

Yet Mr. Morales won a strong, legitimate victory, and to focus on the Castro
influence as the driver behind his win is to ignore the pillars of fear,
anger and resentment on which his popularity is built.

The fear was registered by a working class tired of the violence waged by
Bolivia's left. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some Bolivians felt Mr.
Morales had the best chance of bringing radicals - many of whom are far more
extreme than he is - under control and ending repeated roadblocks that have
paralyzed the economy in the last two years. The anger and resentment were
reserved for the traditional political class and the war on drugs, both of
which played crucial roles in enhancing Mr. Morales' popularity.

To trace the Morales ascendance, travel back in time to the 1997
presidential elections, when the late Gen. Hugo Banzer placed first, but
with only 22% of the vote. Needing a coalition partner to seal his victory
in a congressional vote, he turned to the left-of-center MIR party led by
Jaime Paz Zamora.

That alliance set off alarm bells in Washington because the MIR party
allegedly had drug trafficking ties and the U.S. had already pulled Mr. Paz
Zamora's visa. The party's secretary general, Oscar Eid, was even jailed in
Bolivia in 1996 on charges of links to drug trafficking. To alleviate gringo
concerns and ensure the flow of foreign aid, Banzer pledged a scorched earth
policy toward coca growers in Bolivia's Chapare region, promising to "wipe
out" the cultivation of the ancient leaf during his tenure.

Banzer and his vice president Jorge Quiroga - who was the center-right
candidate in the Sunday election - waged war on coca in the Chapare in 1998
and 1999. Meeting their goal did nothing to alter America's cocaine habits
but it did produce a sharp recession and a migration of poor, unemployed
Bolivians to urban centers. One place they showed up was Bolivia's
third-largest city, Cochabamba, where in 2000, according to the
then-Minister of Information Ronald MacLean-Abraoa, they were easily
mobilized in rioting against the privatization of water service.

The Cochabamba water privatization was the perfect storm for Bolivia's hard
left. But the center-right handed the Trotskyites the weapons they needed to
kill modernity. In fact, the "water war," as the tragedy became known,
exemplified many of the misdeeds committed throughout the region during a
period of supposed reform. The "market" got a black eye, but facts show that
experiments in reform often fell far short of economic liberalism. Instead,
special interests and politicians tried to use "reform" to get rich and
carve out privileges. They endorsed half-measures and ignored the importance
of competition.

According to Fredrik Segerfeldt, in "Water for Sale" (Cato Institute, 2005),
Cochabamba water prices, having been heavily subsidized, went up after the
1999 privatization, but not by the astronomical amount that enemies of the
sale claimed. One reason bills were higher was that previous shortages were
alleviated so consumption quickly climbed.

However, there were other issues. "The blame to be pinned on the local
authorities has been disregarded," Mr. Segerfeldt writes. Cochabamba Mayor
"Manfred Reyes Villa, known as Bonbon, had connections with companies that
would profit from the construction of a dam and he insisted against the
advice of the World Bank that the dam be included in the [water] project,
which incurred an extra cost of millions of dollars." Another plan, not
requiring a new dam, had been tried in 1997, but "Bonbon stopped it cold,"
notes Mr. Segerfeldt. "The local political situation was a mess of
patronage, populism and vanity projects."

Bonbon's dam gave the real "losers" in the privatization - Cochabamba's
vested interests, including subsidized upper-income households and
commercial actors - what they needed to excite the masses. "These groups
cynically exploited poor urban dwellers as an excuse for safeguarding their
own interests." The street violence grew so intense that Banzer had to
declare a state of siege.

The government reversed the water privatization but the damage was done. The
"p" word became a bogeyman, despite the fact, as Mr. Segerfeldt points out,
"the poor of Cochabamba are still paying 10 times as much for their water as
the rich, connected households and continue to indirectly subsidize water
consumption of more well-to-do sector of the community. Water nowadays is
available only four hours a day and no new households have been connected to
the supply network."

Lingering resentment transformed the displaced "cocaleros" into a
radicalized political force, which broadened its agenda against all things
American. Mr. Morales, who built his political career as a leader of the
"cocaleros," is riding that tiger to the presidential palace.

Yet he will not have an easy job of it. The hard left will press him to
nationalize gas reserves and has already promised violence if its wishes are
not granted. Brazil will try to make him moderate his approach since its
Petrobras is already a big player in the Bolivian gas market. It cannot be
lost on Mr. Morales that most of the country's reserves are untapped and
without foreign investment will remain so.

The Morales economic platform doesn't promise a future to Bolivians, only
revenge. That can't take him far and the opposition will have ample
opportunity to challenge him. Whether it can compete will depend a lot on
whether it has learned from its mistakes of warring against coca growers to
satisfy Uncle Sam and abusing its power to deny Bolivians equality under the
law.

Morales Will Just Say No to US Government Drug War Funds

This morning’s Los Tiempos (the Cochabamba daily) carries an article in which the MAS advisor responsible for security issues announced that the new government will stop accepting US funding for a host of Bolivian activities associated with the US War on Drugs.

Most people don’t realize that, in Bolivia, the army, the police, even prosecutors all get funding from the US government. And that isn’t about the US ¨just being helpful¨ with the bills. It is about having heavy influence in the domestic law enforcement of a nation.

Take the prosecutors, for example. According to a the former Public Advocate for Cochabamba (Defensor del Pueblo, a public office) the special prosecutors for drug-related charges receive a personal salary bonus directly from the US Embassy, often greater than their Bolivian government salaries. When I worked on a human rights case some years ago dealing with the prosecutors, we hired a former member of their team as a defense attorney. She told me, ¨If we heard it once, we heard it a hundred times, we have to justify the bonuses.¨

Is it any wonder that, according to the US Embassy itself, arrests on drug charges have leapt from 955 in1996 to 4,138 in 2004? The Embassy touts these figures as a measure of success in its Bolivian ¨War on Drugs¨ effort, not noting however that these are figures for arrests, not number of people guilty. And getting arrested on a drug charge is the name of the game in Bolivia. Thanks to an anti-drug law forced on Bolivia by the US in 1988, anyone accused is tossed in jail without any possibility of bail for a year and a half.

So as the hackles go up over the new Bolivian government just saying No to US War on Drugs funding, perhaps we might ask this question. How would the people of the US feel about government prosecutors in the US receiving monthly salary bonuses from, say China or Venezuela, or US police and military units receiving financial support from Argentina or India? My guess is that it would not go over too well at all.

Bolivia would also like to control its army and law enforcement, just as any nation would.

Christmas in Cochabamba

No fifteen pound advertising inserts in the morning newspaper. No blaring TV or radio ads for last minute sales at Toys R Us for stuff that your kids just gotta have.

Young soldiers go door to door throughout the city, even up here in the boonies of the hillside where we live, collecting toys to hand out to the hundreds of poor families who have come here to the city from the countryside, and also the children who live with their parents in the jails. Mariana carefully scrutinizes her collection of stuffed animals and agrees with three she can part with. Goodbye Dalmatian with the oversized nose. The next day the city center is filed with the sound of dozens of Santa’s, disguised in plain clothes, giving these toys to really happy children.

In shirts sleeves on the evening before Christmas eve, families brave the gentle summer air to walk up and down the city’s tree-lined avenue, “el Prado” admiring the colored lights that the city has hung high in the trees, listening to the city chorus, and watching a performance artist in silver vinyl perform under oddly colored lights. An impromptu business has been set up offering people a chance to ride the short loop on horseback.

Traffic suddenly stops, as Mary arrives on the back of a burro, at the front of an entourage that includes Joseph, three (and potentially more) “wise men”, Roman soldiers, and an assortment of young women dressed like Mary each carrying their own Baby Jesus, as if the Prince of Peace had been cloned or something.

Tonight at midnight families will gather for the traditional dinner. As the clocks strike twelve, Cochabamba will explode in a barrage of fireworks set off from every corner of this valley. Roman candles, skyrockets, sparklers, massive firecrackers known here as Mata Suegras (which oddly translates into Kill your Mother-in-Law). Any firework of your dreams is available at a street corner stand near you. Picture nativity scenes mixed with the Fourth of July without anti-pyrotechnic laws and you pretty much have the scene. Here at my house, we are armed and ready.

Christmas in Cochabamba.

IMF Announces Plans to Cancel $251 Million in Bolivian Debt

The International Monetary Fund announced yesterday plans to cancel the $3.3 billion in debt owed to it by 19 countries. Among these is Bolivia, with a debt cancellation of $251 million.

This is clearly a policy that has been in motion at the Fund for a while and has no connection to Sunday’s election results. I haven’t had time to take a close look at this. Here are some questions that, perhaps, some of our commenters can answer:

1. Are there any conditions that Bolivia has to meet before the debt forgiveness becomes final?

2. Are there conditions that Bolivia has already agreed to?

3. What happens if President-elect Morales decides to take action that the IMF is clearly not pleased with, like canceling a flurry of foreign oil company contracts?

The IMF has a clear history of heavy handedness in Bolivia (see our recent report, Deadly Consequences) so it is reasonable to ask these questions.

Latest Election Results

For those following the numbers, here are the latest from the Corte Electoral, which, on their web site, are still listed as "partial":

Evo Morales (MAS): 54%
Tuto Quiroga (PODEMOS): 24%
Samuel Doria Medina: 8%

If anyone still believes that Bolivian public opinion polling (which generally showed MAS topping out at 37%) is still worth listening to, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. Looks to me like the pollsters never left the cities.

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.

The Blog is One Year Old

Readers:

This month the Blog from Bolivia turns one year old.

I started this on a lark, originally with the idea that it might be interesting to put up observations from time to time about life in Bolivia, a way to offer a little insight to those living far away who wanted to know something more about what it is like to live in this beautiful country.

A year later this Blog has 2,000 to 3,000 loyal readers a day. It has become an important information source for everyone from journalists to the worrying parents of US Peace Corps volunteers. All over Bolivia I keep running into people I don’t know who say, “Hey I read your Blog all the time.” Who would have thought?

After some encouragement we opened up a comments section, which has been, well, lively to say the least. A US journalist who passed through town recently said to me, “Well, the thing about Internet journalism is that you are basically writing to people who agree with you.” Hey man, check out the comments.

Thank you to everyone who has made this Blog a success, including the people who devote so much time and energy going after everything I say (and yes, I do miss the stalkers who used to add a link to an anti-Jim Shultz Web site to every posting). Everyone needs a hobby and I guess trashing me is as good as any. It keeps me honest.

Thank you all, for your interest, your ideas, and your support this past year. I think it is safe to say that 2005 has been an interesting time in Bolivia. And 2006 promises to be more interesting still.

Thank you and happy holidays to all.

Jim Shultz
The Democracy Center

Bolivia's Election Stunner

Dear Readers:

Here is a post-mortem on yesterday’s election, a slightly revised version of the Democracy Center newsletter we are sending out today.

Best wishes to all,

Jim

BOLIVIA'S ELECTION STUNNER

On Sunday, by a whopping and historic margin, Evo Morales was elected President of Bolivia. It looks like he will win with a 51% majority, the first modern Bolivian president to ever do so, or even come close.

Headline writers in the foreign press have had a field day trying to pin a label on Morales’ surprise victory. The New York Times announced the victory of a “coca farmer”. The Chicago Sun-Times abbreviated Morales as a “leftist”. CNN picked up a campaign rally declaration in which Morales called himself, the US government’s “nightmare”. But what does the election of Morales to the presidency here really mean?

A Clear Rejection of Economic Policies Imposed from Washington

First and foremost it means that the Bolivian people, across class lines and regions, are demanding a reversal of twenty years of market-crazed economic policies pressed on the country from abroad, and by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in particular. Growing coca leaves was not the issue in these elections. Recovering national control over gas and oil, privatized away at bargain prices in the 1990s, that was the issue.

Nearly six years after the people of Cochabamba took to the streets to take back their water from the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco (a privatization done under pressure from the World Bank), the nationwide voices of protest for economic change found their voice on the ballot through Evo Morales. Last night he told cheering supporters, “We will change the economic models that have blocked development for the people.” That change begins with Morales’ plans to take back control of the nation’s vast gas and oil reserves and renegotiate all the nation’s contracts with foreign oil companies.

Economic foolishness? Joseph Stiglitz, the economic Nobel laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank didn’t think so when he spoke with the New York Times Magazine last month, "They could do it,” he said, noting that other oil companies would gladly negotiate new deals on better terms.

The Rise of Bolivia’s Indigenous Majority

Second, Morales’ victory represents the rising of the country’s Indian majority into power. Last night, speaking to the nation’s Quechua and Aymara people he said, with clear pride, “For the first time we are the president.”

I saw that indigenous identification with Morales up close in October when I spent five days in a small Quechua Indian village three hours off into the mountains. On a sunny afternoon I sat with the village leader, Lucio, a man I have known for almost a decade. I asked him if the coming elections were big on people’s minds. “No, we are really more worried about whether it will rain soon.” I asked him if people were excited about Evo Morales and the prospect of electing an Indian as president. “Well, he is really just a politician.” Then I asked him whether the people of the village would vote. “Oh yes, we will vote. All 400 of us will walk together 45 minutes to the place where we vote and we will all vote for Evo.”

And so on Sunday, Bolivians by the millions marched distances short and far to give Morales the biggest mandate of any president here in half a century.

The Risks Ahead

There are risks to be sure. The people who I have worked with here as activists for many years are suddenly Senators and Congress members. They are good people but, like Morales, they are likely to underestimate how hard it is to actually govern. The dance with foreign donors, including the US, will be difficult but essential, with Bolivia dependent on foreign aid for a huge portion of its annual budget. The economic plans that Morales and his backers have in mind, important as they are, will also prove difficult. Putting twenty years of economic toothpaste back in the tube is no easy task.

In addition, any political victory, especially a big one, is a recipe for disaster in itself. It makes people think that their public support will endure. It invites recklessness. One need only look to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent ego-driven rise and fall in California to see the process on display. And in Bolivia, public discontent doesn’t just mean people turn against you at the polls (as they so clearly did last month in my home state). In Bolivia it means they block the streets. It means they chant for your downfall and sometimes win it.

Morales takes office with far fewer options than he may think and with public expectations that will be virtually impossible to meet. Already some social movement leaders have given him just three months to take strong action on retaking the nation’s gas and oil and in convening the long-awaited constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Again, an Example for All of Us

But for now, Morales and his backers, and the Bolivian people along with them, have won a victory that is both sweet and historic. When I first moved back to Bolivia in 1998 the country was governed by Hugo Banzer, a former dictator. World Bank and IMF economics was the rule of the day. In a month Bolivia will be governed by a man who earned his political stripes confronting Banzer and others in the streets and the market fundamentalism forced on Bolivian from abroad will begin to be dismantled piece by piece.

Bolivians have succeeded remarkably in declaring what kind of country they don’t want. Now the challenge is to build, in a practical and sustainable way, the country that they do want. I think there is a decent chance that they’ll pull it off. If they do they will set, once again, an example for all of us – that what’s possible in the world is often more than what we think.

A Note to the Media

I have gotten e-mail notes from a couple of reporters saying that they have tried to reach me, without success, via my cell phone. Unfortunately, my Bolivia cell phone is in my lost suitcase somewhere between Entebbe and Cochabamba. If you are press trying to reach me today please do so by email at: JShultz@democracyctr.org. I'll let you know where I can be reached by phone.

Thanks,

Jim Shultz

Evo Morales: “The Voice of the People is the Voice of God.”

Evo Morales just finished his victory speech here in Cochabamba. He declared that his victory signaled “a new era in Bolivian history”, which it surely would. He also pledged to “change the economic models that have blocked development for the people.”

I was disappointed in the speech, actually. A victory like this is a moment to move beyond the campaign, to speak of vision and of plans that can unite both supporters and skeptics. It is a time to speak as a president would speak. But Evo is still in campaign mode and still bearing grudges about what he called “ the dirty war” waged against he and MAS, including the emerging story of thousands upon thousands of people purged from the voter rolls around the country. I guess his resentment is understandable.

Morales wrapped up his speech noting to Bolivia’s indigenous majority, “For the first time, we are the president.” He said as well, “We hope that this action by Bolivia will be an example, not just for Bolivia but for all of Latin America.”

Tuto Quiroga – Not Quite a Concession, But About as Close as You Get

At 9pm local time Tuto Quiroga held a grim-faced news conference in La Paz in which he thanked his supporters, congratulated Evo Morales, and didn’t explicitly answer the question, would he seek to win the presidency through an anybody-but-Evo coalition in the Congress. He pledged to stay in Bolivia and said he would serve the Bolivian people “be it in the government or the opposition”.

In politics you call that leaving the door open but, if the current results hold, there really isn’t much of door to keep open. It is hard to imagine anyone, Quiroga included, wanting to be president, after being trounced by Morales. In reality, Quiroga’s speech makes a Morales presidency seem like a full-on certainty at this point.

With 50% of the Vote In -- President Morales

Cochabamba news stations are now reporting, at 8:30 local time, the following results based on 50% of the vote counted nationally:

Evo Morales 50.2%
Tuto Quiroga 31.5%
Samuel Doria Medina 8.3%

If this holds, or any result close to it, it would be a stunning, historic win for Morales and MAS. To put this in perspective, in 2002 Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was elected with 23% of the vote, finishing just one percentage point ahead of Morales. This would be a doubling of Morales’ support since then and a win that would make it virtually impossible to deny MAS the presidency.

Morales may win the election outright, the first Bolivian president in recent memory to do so. It would certainly represent a greater mandate than any president has had in decades. Even if the final results are close to this (say a Morales vote over 45%) any effort to block his ascension to the presidency would be seem as a theft of the election from its rightful winner.

Let’s see how these results hold or don’t over the next few hours. Meanwhile, I am off to Morales headquarters here in Cochabamba for his speech and will report on it when I get back.

Voting Day in Bolivia – The Things We Saw

This morning The Democracy Center staff and volunteers fanned out across Cochabamba to watch today's historic vote. Here are some observations on the day.

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I went down the hill with my oldest daughter and my son as they walked to a neighborhood school to vote. It is a very hot day here in Cochabamba and many voters held umbrellas over their heads as they approached the polls. At the polling place kids were playing soccer. Hamburgers and sodas were for sale. Most people had voted earlier so my kids walked in without standing on line.

They were given a chance to vote on three races – President, the lower house of Congress, and Governor (the first time that has been an elected position instead of a presidential appointment). The ballot is pretty simple, a set of rectangle boxes adorned with the colors and the logo of each respective party, along with a photo of the candidate right in the center. Voters just check a box for each race and hand their ballots in. Believe me, this is way less complicated than the confusing maze of candidates and state and local ballot measures my daughter faced in her last vote, in California.

A young man was conducting an exit poll for a national TV network. In my mixed neighborhood on Cochabamba’s north side Evo Morales held a small lead over Tuto Quiroga. Who knows how scientific the poll is. A lot of people wouldn’t answer the question.

By Jim Shultz

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The lead-up to Election Day is full of anticipation. Not because of the potential outcome of the vote, but because of the voting laws. There is no public transportation or commercial taxis. No alcohol is sold. No cars are allowed on the road unless they have official permission from the electoral court. People stockpile food. My house mom warned me that pedestrians are not allowed in the streets in groups greater than two people. In reality today was an excuse for a big party, for people to take over the vacant streets with block parties, for kids to construct goal markers in the road for soccer games.

Voting in Bolivia is mandatory for citizens under 75. When you go vote, you get three things. A pinkie, purple with indelible ink. An identity card, which you have to show for the next month or so in any financial transactions. And a commemorative pocket sized calendar from the National Electoral Court. The calendar card features a picture of a red, yellow and green tropical bird with its wings spread. A large pair of silver scissors is poised open around one of the birds wings ready to chop it off. In small print it reads, “A country without democracy is like a bird with clipped wings.” If you miss the writing, which I watched several people do, the picture is quite disturbing, especially as a reward for voting.

by Liese Gordon

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The election process in Cochabamba went totally normal today, even though there were various complaints about people being eliminated from the voter rolls. This kept a number of citizens from voting. There are two possible explanations for this. The first is a large turnout by voters who did not participate in last year’s municipal elections but who wanted to vote today. The second reason would be a plot by the National Election Court and some of the parties opposed to MAS, which is running first in the polls. Some MAS backers noted that the areas where these voter purges seemed to be the most widespread were those where MAS has its greatest support. The event of these voter purges could cast a shadow over election results given the deep polarization between MAS and PODEMOS [the party of Tuto Quiroga].

by Boris Rios

Bolivia’s Elections on Sunday – What to Watch For

Many eyes, both in Bolivia and around the world, will be focused on tomorrow’s important national elections. However, what the vote means and how it will play out over the next few weeks requires a bit of local understanding and analysis. Remember (as so few foreign reporters seem to): Winning first place does not mean you are elected President. Not unless you win 51% of the vote, which no one seems likely to. The winner will be selected, from among the top two finishers, by Congress in January

Here’s what The Democracy Center will be watching for and what our readers might want to watch for as well:

The Results of the Popular Vote

This is obvious, but there are nuances to look for. Polling results have been pretty much the same since the start of the campaign: Evo Morales in first with somewhere between 34-37% of the vote, Tuto Quiroga in second with 25-27%, Samuel Doria Medina coming in third at around 15% and the rest trailing below 10%. There may be some late switching from Medina to the marginal MNR candidate. In other words, as far as the polling goes, no late surge for either of the top two.

However, the actual voting could yield results very different.

Clearly if any candidate has popular momentum at the end it is Morales. Witness the fact that his end-of campaign victory rally in Cochabamba was held in a soccer stadium while Quiroga’s was held in a small city plaza. Does a last minute surge or a countryside vote not reflected in the polls push Morales and MAS past 40%? From the conversations I have had with people here, 40% seems like the psychological barrier in which a Morales presidency moves from being a negotiable possibility to a something almost undeniable.

Conversely, if Morales does worse than the polls suggest, less than 30% for example, and Quiroga does better, a Quiroga presidency in alliance with other parties seems much more likely.

The strongest likelihood is a vote result similar to the current polling, which leads us to the next thing to watch.

How the Popular Vote Translates into Congressional Numbers

As we, and many other Bolivia watchers, have pointed out, the popular vote does not translate directly into the way in which seats will be apportioned in Congress. Senators are elected by department and in many of the smaller ones Quiroga is likely to win. That and a number of other complicated congressional vote arrangements means, in all likelihood, that Quiroga will end up with a higher proportion of the vote in the Congress than he will in the popular vote, though still a wide gap shy of 51%

The “Smoke Signals” from Morales, Quiroga, Dora Medina, and the US

Four key players will be looking at Sunday’s results and making some hard choices. How they are thinking about those choices is likely to be reflected in their public comments in the first few days. These include:

Evo Morales: Is he going to push hard for the presidency? As we have noted on the Blog for weeks, Morales and MAS will take a look at their vote results and make a choice whether they want to make the political deals required to win 51% in Congress or whether they think they are better off as the opposition to a Quiroga government focusing pressure on a quick convening of a constituent assembly to rewrite Bolivia’s constitution. Watch Morales’ post election comments. If he and MAS use wording like “inevitable” to describe his election to the Presidency, that means MAS is deciding to bring all the pressure and deal making it can to bear on making that happen.

Tuto Quiroga: Does he want to be President after a weak second place finish? Similarly, Quiroga will need to decide whether he wants to try and wheel and deal a second place finish, potentially a weak one, into a vote in the Congress to make him president. More than a few here have questioned whether he has the fire in the belly to do that and he himself has made numerous comments that he will not seek the presidency if he does not finish first. Moving back to the US again with his family and making some money could look like a sweeter option than trying to govern a fractious nation on the basis of a quarter of the popular vote. Watch the nuances as well for how tough Quiroga sounds about winning the vote in the Congress.

Samuel Dora Medina: Does he sound like he is ready to dance with Morales or Quiroga? If both Morales and Quiroga choose to seriously contest the vote in the Congress, Doria Medina will likely be the kingmaker to either. His comments and the order in which he meets with his two rivals will also offer insight into both his intentions and the negotiations underway behind the scenes.

The US Government: Is Evo acceptable? I think that a good part of both Quiroga’s and Doria Medina’s decisions will be influenced by the moves of the US government. You can bet that by the end of the day Monday the Ambassador will have had telephone conversations if not meetings with both. Will the US decide to use its influence to do all it can to block a Morales presidency? Will it signal, in the case of a strong Morales finish, that it is ready to “work constructively with anyone the Bolivian people chose to elect?” Watch closely for what the US Embassy has to say. Watch also for whether the US statements come from Washington instead of La Paz. That would mean something, either way, even more serious.

The Blog and Comments Posted Here

The Democracy Center will be talking all weekend and all week with the various sources we have here and we’ll be writing as often as we need, to provide updated news and analysis. Among our readers and commenters are also many people with a deep understanding of Bolivian politics and wide contacts. We encourage you to post those views, as you always do, on this Blog so that it can become a key information source as events unfold.

And Now the Vote

The campaigns are over, wrapping up with a swing of huge rallies by the leading candidates. My wife Lynn went to the large one last night for Morales and MAS in Cochabamba’s football stadium, in the rain. She says the candidate announced it was a benediction from Pachamama.

Bolivia now gets ready to vote, under an international spotlight unlike any election in its past. Yellow ribbon now also blocks access to alcohol in the major markets. It is illegal to sell alcohol in the run up to Sunday’s election (though I can promise that copious amounts of it will be drunk across the nation as the country shuts down for the vote).

I am also, quite happily, back from Africa, following a heinous four-continents-in-three-days journey that left both my suitcase and my clock wandering somewhere between here and there.

The Democracy Center is revving up to provide our Blog readers with lots of coverage from lots of angles in the next week, as the vote takes place, the results are counted, and the real wheeling and dealing begins. Stay tuned. We’ll do our best to keep you informed.

The Only White Guy Around

Entebbe, Uganda

With my work here done I had a day to see what Uganda looks like outside of a conference room. I long ago made it a practice to stay anywhere I go an extra day.

I headed out on the back of a "boda-boda", the motorcycles that serve as taxis here. With the equator's warm wind whipping back my hair, in short order I ended up at the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens is pretty much the only tourist attraction Entebbe's got, if you exclude the airport, where Israel once staged a famous rescue raid three decades ago.

If Dr. Seuss had designed a nature park, this would be it. Wildly high trees with impossibly wide branches stretched out like long stringy arms. Vines growing up the sides. Purple flowers with pungent smells. Enormous birds, looking like storks that got blown up three sizes too big. Black and white monkeys hopping from branch to branch. Lake Victoria reaching out to the horizon.

The mere mention of the Garden to anyone here is immediately met with, "They filmed Tarzan there you know. The old version with Johnny Weissmuller, in black and white." Dr. Seuss meets Tarzan.

As the sun started to sink I sat down on a slope. Within minutes I was encircled by a group of a dozen Ugandan kids, loaded with a string of questions.

"Which country are you from? [Bolivia through them for a loop.]"

"When do you leave?"

"What kind of airplane do you fly on?"

"Do you have a camera?'

After taking some pictures and showing them off on my 2 x 3 inch digital screen (this made them very happy) they started to play with my hair. In Uganda there is basically one hairstyle – girl or boy, man or woman – and that style is a quarter inch of fuzz. As they messed, laughing, with my forever-in-need-of-a-haircut brown mop, I was reminded of the day my Afro-Brazilian friend Barto visited the orphanage that my wife and I ran in Cochabamba. Bolivian kids had never seen ANYONE with long dreads before and we couldn't get them to keep their hands off all that wild hair.

Kids, the universal kindness in all cultures. Kids and hair they have never seen up close before, the universal curiosity.

Bolivia and Uganda, two countries separated by a world. Two countries joined by their simplicity and humility. It is good to live in cultures that are simple.

Blog from Uganda

We sat under the biggest mango tree I have ever seen, a beast of a tree reaching as wide as a house and as tall as the sky. There, local Uganda citizens and local public officials gathered to explain to us -- a group from all over the world -- how citizens in Uganda are knee-deep in overseeing how their government spends their money.

I am here in Uganda this week for a gathering of an international project that I helped start three years ago, the Civil Society Budget Initiative. We support groups in Africa, Latin America and Asia to study and advocate on their governments' public spending policies, with an eye to making budgets miore directly responsible to the needs of the poorest. People have come here from Malawi. Ethiopia, Guatemala, Bolivia, Indonesia, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.

Uganda is a model of sorts, a place famous for its local citizen budget monitoring. Parents take note of how many teachers are really in the schools, how many books children have, and similar counts of things on the ground. The Uganda Debt Network helps them compare those realities with what it says on paper they are supposed to have. Public officials, our friends here noted, sometimes get confused between "their own money and public money." Here citizens don't have much tolerance for such confusion and local budget monitoring is a real instrument in the fight against corruption.

In the meeting we attended, hot and humid here on the equator, the central topic of conversation was that the teachers at the local rural school weren't showing up. The problem was that local officials hadn't dealt with the falling-apart rooms in which the teachers were expected to live. After the meeting, fixing the rooms was made a priority. I have heard the same issue in Bolivia, a chronic problem in getting rural teachers to come and to stay.

All over the world a citizen movement is underway to make public budgets -- that great mystery of numbers and complexity -- something understood by real people. It is after all -- from California to Uganda -- the main instrument by which the government will decide everything from the kind of education that our kids will have to the way in which we will address the basic needs of the poor.

For more infiormation on budget work, including some of The Democracy Center's publications on this topic, visit here.

An Invitation to Foreign Press Visiting Bolivia

Dear Reporters:

We know that many of you are heading to Bolivia this month to cover the elections. We have been doing all we can to assist journalists with research, contacts, and other help.

Now, to help visitors from the foreign press deepen their understanding of Bolivia (for these elections and beyond) The Democracy Center and our Bolivian colleagues will be hosting a media briefing and we hope that you can come:

Bolivia Media Briefing

When: Saturday, December 17 (the day before the vote) 9:30 to Noon

Where: The Democracy Center offices in Cochabamba

What will be included:

1. Briefings by Bolivian and foreign experts on three current issues with important international implications: a) The Bolivian debate over gas, b) The trial of former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and c) The Bechtel "water revolt" case before the World Bank.

2. Opportunities to interview a variety of Bolivian social movement leaders

3. Salteñas

For those who haven’t covered Bolivia before, that Saturday before the vote is a "dead" day, in terms of reporting. The campaigns all cease. There is no campaigning or candidates to follow around. There is also no alcohol for sale (legally) that day. We thought this would be a good time to provide visiting journalists with a briefing.

If you are interested, please contact Gretchen Gordon (email: graciela@riseup.net) for details and to RSVP.

Note: This event is only for legitimate foreign press and only journalists will be invited to attend. The Democracy Center will continue to host information events for the general public after the New Year starts.

Bolivia's Unplanned Elections

Last night I completed our extended analysis of Bolivia's upcoming national elections, looking at how we got here, at the two leading candidates, at what this election means, and at the possible scenarios ahead. Below is the lead. The full article can be found here.


Bolivia's Unplanned Elections

On December 18th the people of Bolivia will go to the polls. It is an election that no one planned and that few asked for and in which the nation will elect its sixth president in as many years. To the casual observer abroad, Bolivia looks like a nation in a state of democratic meltdown. Some analysts have warned that Bolivia is on its way to becoming the Afghanistan of Latin America.

On the ground, however, what is going on now in Bolivia is the latest act in a long struggle for social justice by people who rank as the poorest in all of South America. At the center is the demand by Bolivia's indigenous majority for a fair share of political and economic power, in a country where they have had little of either. At the forefront as well is the widespread popular rejection of a draconian economic model largely imposed on the country by powers from abroad.

Support the Petition Calling on the US Government to Serve Former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada

As many of you know, the government of Bolivia made a formal request last June, to the US government, that it serve former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada with a subpoena demanding his return to Bolivia. Mr, Sanchez de Lozada has been living comfortably in the US sicne his ousting from office in October 2003. The Bolivian government wants the former President to give testimony in its legal investigation related to the dozens of government killings that took place in Bolivia during Sanchez de Lozada's time in office from 2002-2003.

With the clock ticking on the deadline for presenting those papers, the US government has failed to act. It is safe to presume that they could locate and serve the former President if they chose to. Our US allies managed to accomplish that task just a few weeks ago at a Washington, DC event where Sanchez de Lozada spoke. If a group of activists can accomplish that, one would expect that the US government could as well.

Today the coalition of organizations working in international solidarity with the Bolivian Assembly on Human Rights and the families of Sanchez de Lozada's victims has launched an on-line petition that you can sign to join the call on the US to act. That petition will be delivered to the US Embassy and other US officials next week. You can join the petition here. I encourage you to do so.

For those interested in more information on Bolivia's efforts to try Mr. Sanchez de Lozada, you can find that here.

The Democracy Center will have another announcement on this next week. Watch for it.