Bolivia Book Presentation in Sucre Thursday

On Thursday, July 31, the Center for Independent Media in Sucre will be hosting a public presentation of The Democracy Center's newly released book, Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization (the Spanish edition). We hope that all our friends, and detractors as well, who are in Sucre will come for an evening of presentation, video and debate.

Here are the details:

Presentation: Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization

When: Thursday, July 31 at 7pm

Where: El Salón Picasso de la Fundación Pachamama (Calle Uyuni esq. Calama)
Sucre, Bolivia

Presenters and Commenters:

Jim Shultz, Executive Director, The Democracy Center
Jimena Dávalos, Defensora del Pueblo de Chuquisaca
Antonio Abal Oña, Independent Journalist

Admission Free

As a reminder, the entire book in Spanish is available for free on The Democracy Center Web site here. The U.K. edition of the book from Merlin Press will be published and available in October and the U.S. edition from University of California Press will be published in January 2009. A short video trailer for the book can be viewed here.

Bolivia’s Maybe Election

Two weeks from today Bolivia will vote in a historic election, with the political heads of the President, Vice-President, and eight of the nation’s nine governors on the line.

Or maybe it will just be another Sunday.

Such is the uncertain world of Bolivian politics these days.

The Run-Up to the Recall Vote

The national ‘revocatoria’ vote scheduled for August 10 is the product of an odd political chess game that President Evo Morales and his opposition have been playing out for more than a year. As we have written about here before, the idea of the “vote-on-everyone-one-more-time” was first launched by embattled Cochabamba Governor Manfred Reyes Villa in January 2007, after the region exploded in violent confrontations between his supporters and Morales’. Then it languished, only to be resurrected even more oddly by the opposition in Congress in May, which signed onto a lopsided voting formula favored by Evo.

Sometimes in Bolivian politics you can only interpret people’s actions one of two ways. They are either so incredibly Machiavellian that mere mortals such as myself can’t possibly understand the grand strategy involved, or politicians here are just incredibly foolish.

In any event, with two weeks to go until the maybe-election – I’ll get to the ‘maybe’ part in a minute – evidence of the ‘epic vote’ is pretty minor here in Cochabamba. A couple of weeks ago MAS backers opened up a couple of local campaign offices to modest turnouts and the sounds of off-key tubas. Evo’s opponents are slightly less visible. Yesterday they hung a series of banners down Calle Americas, a central strip in the city’s affluent northern neighborhoods. “No MAS Muertos [No More Deaths]”, “No MAS Venezuelas.” What it may lack in strategy the opposition makes up for in catchy slogans.

There is also that nifty full-page in today's Los Tiempos featuring an array of legal experts calling for the suspension of the vote. I really did think it was a news feature, until I spotted the fine print "solicitude" in the top right hand corner, "advertisement". Shall we take bets on which regional governor with a famous moustache paid for it?

Evo meanwhile is making the rounds at rallies in some of the region’s rural areas. Here in the metropolis of rural Tiquipaya the only evidence I have seen so far from the campaign is a lone MAS sound truck at the Sunday market this morning, draped in the Bolivian flag and a Whipala.

In other words, while most of the commentators writing about the coming vote from abroad have amped it up us a major political drama, most Bolivians I know seem to care much more about the fact that 1 Boliviano now gets you just two rolls of bread (it used to buy you 5) and that the local trufi drivers blocked the road here for two days in a dispute over routes.

More to the point, all this is in wild contrast to the feel of things here in December 2005, when Morales was first elected. You could not step foot into the streets without being struck on the head by an election banner, or being run over by a sound truck, or offered a leaflet. The campaign atmosphere was electric. Not this time. Not yet at least.

The Maybe-Election

Bolivian politics has developed a long habit of being operated under rules that are never quite clear, sort of like the games designed by my five-year-old daughter. What kind of vote does it take for a Constituent Assembly to approve a new constitution? Can regions unilaterally declare their autonomy? Quien sabe? Who knows? The rules governing the ‘revocatoria’ vote are no exception.

Last week the sole remaining magistrate on the National Constitutional Court (in Bolivia this is separate from the National Supreme Court) declared that the vote should not be held. Her logic – the failure of Morales and the Congress to agree on appointments to the other two Court slots has left it without the ability to adequately rule on challenges to the election’s constitutionality, and therefore it should not take place. Meanwhile the National Electoral Court, which has responsibility to organize the vote, has declared otherwise.

To no one’s surprise, those who favor the vote and those who oppose it (Morales backers and backers of the threatened Governors, respectively) have taken sides on the constitutional questions in accordance with their politics. Who is right? What will happen? Quien sabe?

Odd Positioning

Then there is the quite odd positioning of the various politicians involved, acts of political contortion that have left several of the nation’s leaders looking as much like pretzels as they do candidates.

There is Manfred Reyes Villa, the elected Governor of Cochabamba. His position is as follows: He proposed the vote in the first place but now says it is illegitimate and won’t campaign or accept the results of he loses – though he probably will if he wins. And he also announced last week that, while the vote is unconstitutional and illegitimate, everyone should go to the polls in two weeks and vote No on Evo. Just in case I suppose.

Then there is Evo. On the one hand he is trying to campaign on what he considers to be a record of accomplishment. Last week I was on the receiving end of a pair of widely circulated e-mails generated (at taxpayer expense) from the Ministry of the Presidency. Slick presentations, adorned with both the government emblem and Evo’s campaign logo touted bar graphs showing the steep rises under his tenure in government spending for public works and services – the bread and butter of politics here.

On the one hand one might take that as a sign that Evo is reaching out once more to the urban middle class that joined with his natural rural base to back him in 2005 – I am guessing that the e-mails and PDF files were not intended for the residents of Tapacari. But on the other hand Evo seems quite clear that he is campaigning primarily to mobilize that rural base again, in ways not likely to sooth city-dwellers and the middle class.

Yesterday in a speech to the core of his base (and one of the more radical elements of it) the cocaleros, Evo returned to the themes and attacks that are always certain to win cheers from his backers and give nervous pause to those on the fence. He attacked the lone Constitutional magistrate by name, declaring her to be an enemy of democracy and an insult to Bolivian women. He declared his other opponents to be tools of neoliberals and the U.S. and all a part of the same regimes responsible for the deaths of the nation’s martyrs, from Tupak Katari on down.

There is of course, no doubt, that a core of the opposition to Evo springs from a deep well of antagonism by wealthy interests threatened by his rule and by racism in response to his existence as the nation’s first indigenous President.

But that alone does not explain the people who sit next to me in a dilapidated Toyota station wagon in the morning, the working poor headed into the city for a long day of work. The objections of the elite and the racism of many does not account for the declarations of, “Ayyy Evo, he just wants to fight with everyone,” or, “He said he was going to make things better, but it is all just the same.”

It may well be that, as polls suggest, Evo is headed for a victory in two weeks. But if I were MAS or Morales I’d be plenty worried about that mom sitting next to me in the back seat. Politically deserved or not, it is that kind of antipathy from people that once supported you that carries the makings of a defeat. It is also the kind of opinion and expression that gets left out by those writing about the vote based reports via their computer screen.

A Frightening Development in the U.S. Presidential Election

I never set out to be a "blogger" or to have a public presence on the Web. I never sought anything much beyond anonymity. I started writing modestly – an Internet newsletter, other articles, a Blog, scattered speaking engagements in the U.S., etc. – but we started to develop a following.

Then, apparently, a few weeks ago, some avid fans decided it was time to put my name forward in the current round of elections in the U.S., without asking my authorization. And it has, to be frank, gotten way out of hand. I knew I was in trouble last week when U.S. Secret Service protection arrived at out little house in Tiquipaya. My code name is apparently, "Big Foot". And you should try to see these guys try to blend in. Yesterday at the Sunday market the agents were wearing tire-soled sandals with their black suits. It was, to be honest, pathetic.

Here is the link to what is going on. Please readers, I ask you. Do not continue this effort. My older kids have started to ask if the White House has a swimming pool.

Jim Shultz

The Romance of Elections

Elections here. Elections there.

On August 10 Bolivians will return to the polls once again. Some will go to fight for Evo and others to get rid of him. Some will go just because the law obligates them to. In the U.S., voters have been gripped by election season for more than a year and the final vote is still four months away.

Here and there the romance of elections is in the air. "If we just win the vote everything will change." That's the romance, be it in Spanish or English. I am a proponent of voting. Since I turned 18 I've done it with every legal opportunity offered. Voting matters because who gets elected matters. Anyone who says otherwise is fooling themselves. Need an example? I have no doubt that if Al Gore had been elected in 2000 that the U.S. would not have invaded Iraq. It is not a marginal difference.

But anyone, in the U.S., Bolivia, or anywhere else, who thinks that winning elections is all it takes to change things is fooling themselves as well. Winning the vote is just the start. In Bolivia and the U.S. right now, that is a lesson worth taking seriously.

Bolivia

Let us take Bolivia.

Evo's election in 2005 was full of romance, as much abroad as here. The first indigenous President of the hemisphere's most indigenous nation. The ritual at Tiwanaku. Whipalas in the air. La Paz full of heads of state and dignitaries. "Imagine, a campesino is going to be President!" a taxi driver said to me with such pride.

Lesson one about winning elections: what winning buys you is the official authority of the office, which is a good deal of power to be sure. But in a pluralistic, democratic society where others feel differently, those leaders are still in a power-sharing arrangement with those who oppose them – like it or not.

Bolivia's left, when it was out of power, made that point quite clearly to those in power, by making the nation ungovernable. Did Evo and MAS really expect their natural adversaries to roll over and do different? Did Evo and MAS have a strategy in hand to either deal with or isolate those adversaries? Not one that is easy to spot.

Like it or not, the opposition in Bolivia has brought the 'Evo revolution' if you wish to call it that, to a practical standstill.

There is a certain delusional nostalgia in Bolivia's return to the polls next month. Even if Evo holds on to the 54% he won that heady December two and a half years ago, does that mean that suddenly his opponents will step aside and let him carry on with, for example, the new Constitution? Don't bet your morning Saltena on it. And what if MAS succeeds in ousting some its adversaries among the state Governors, like Manfred Reyes Villa? Will that suddenly neuter his opponents? No, quite the opposite. It will embolden the opposition in Cochabamba into the streets and the violence certain to follows will be a disaster for Bolivia and will only make the Morales government weaker, not stronger.

Making change in Bolivia is far more complicated than winning elections.

The U.S.A.

Now lets look north. There is so much to be inspired about in this year's U.S. Presidential Election. A black man promising change may well be the next occupant of the Oval Office. Thousands of young people of all colors have taken to electoral politics as a vehicle for change. Millions of people making small donations have done more to change the face of campaign financing than anything political reformers have achieved in twenty years (I say this as a former advocate with Common Cause).

But again the cardinal rule of politics. Winning the vote is a start but it is just the start. Turning victory at the polls into real change is complicated and fails as often as it succeeds.

Here is an inside secret about U.S. politics, one I learned by working for and around politicians for five years and almost becoming one myself. Politicians – be they in U.S. or Bolivian – are mathematicians. They are constantly doing political math equations in their head.

"If I do this, who will I make happy and who will I piss off? How much importance do I assign to the ones who are made angry? How much will they hurt me?"

They do this, left and right, in the name of maintaining the authority that they have fought so hard to secure.

Making change through the political system is about affecting the math. It is about affecting the equations in politicians' heads. Here are two examples:

President Bush was able to invade Iraq not just because he had the authority as President to do so, but because his administration willfully manipulated the facts to turn the public's post 9/11 fears into a political math in which even supposedly "liberal Democrats" felt politically compelled to vote for war.

President Clinton (and Hillary) thought that his 1992 win at the polls gave them the authority to win national health care reform, but they failed miserably at creating the political math for reform, and hence lost badly.

What will this mean for 'progressives' if Senator Obama wins? The post-primaries vigil over "Is he moving right?" has already begun. Last week the nominee-to-be voted to give immunity to communications companies that helped President Bush's illegal wiretapping adventures.

Be ready. Whatever disappointment we hear from idealistic Obama supporters now will be far louder if he wins and the real compromises begin. You want to make a difference? Focus not only on the election (and that matters a lot) but the math afterwards as well.

The speed with which Obama pulls the U.S. out or Iraq (or that President McCain does not) will depend on whether citizens in the U.S. continue their organizing work to make the case. So it will be as well on energy policy, health care reform and the other front burner issues for whoever is elected.

And here is where politics are much the same be they in Bolivia or the U.S. August 10 in one place, November 4 in the other. Voters in both places will go the polls and register their sentiments about who should and who should not have authority in their country.

Each vote will set the stage, but the play that comes afterwards will depends on how the victors and the citizens who back them find a way to keep their opponents from bringing the whole thing to a stop before it starts.

Those Wacky August Bolivian Elections

When the good people of my home state, California, held a recall vote on the Governor a few years ago there were two nice things about it. The first is that it was truly great entertainment, with everyone from an action hero (he won) to a porno star jumping into the fray. The second is that the rules of the game were clear in terms of what it took to win or lose.

It is that second aspect that seems to be missing from Bolivia's planned recall vote for the President, Vice President, and the State Governors on August 10th. A month ahead of a vote that could reshape the nation's politics in historic ways the politicians involved are still debating how the vote should be conducted, what constitutes winning, and in one case whether he is willing to participate at all – national law aside.

"Dear Evo, Pretty Please Let Us Correct Our Error"

Yesterday opposition leaders in Bolivia's Senate and civic groups from six regions joined together in a call to change the formula by which the vote would be held. Under the law as it stands now – legislation approved two months ago with opposition support – the various elected leaders on the ballot can only be kicked out if the NO votes against them exceed both the percentage of the vote they were elected with in 2005 and also exceed the raw total of votes those politicians received in that election.

In other words, President Evo Morales, elected with just over 53% of the vote in 2005 could have a majority of voters cast their ballots NO on Evo and still win. Alternatively, poor José Luis Paredes, elected Governor of La Paz with just 37% of the vote in 2005, could have more than 60% of his constituents cast votes in his favor and still lose. Get it?

Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is a decidedly uneven playing field to Evo's advantage. The formulas were the Morales' government's idea, based on the argument that a smaller number of voters in August 2008 should not be able to undo what a larger number of voters did at the polls in December 2005.

So, why did the opposition leaders – those now so eager to switch to a straight formula of 50% plus one – approve the law in the first place? Let's put it this way. In some countries laws are preceded by a series of "whereas" clauses in which lawmakers pontificate about why the law involved is important. If such were the case with the law the opposition is seeking now it might read as follows:

Whereas we are a bunch of complete political incompetents who, on the heels of victory in the Santa Cruz autonomy referendum, got very cocky and decided to call Evo's bluff on a revocatoria vote. Whereas we passed the law with Evo's formula completely betting that he was bluffing and would veto it, giving us some political advantage. Whereas he called our bluff and agreed to have he and everyone else stand for a vote on August 10. Whereas we painted ourselves into a corner that anyone with a brain could have seen coming (but for us). We therefore resolve to ask Evo, pretty please, to give up the whopping political advantage we never actually intended to give him.

Now, personally I am guessing that they won't actually write it that way. And of course, Evo has responded to the request in the way that a Bolivian soccer team might, if asked to kindly move a championship match from 12,000-feet-high La Paz to sea-level Asuncion just because the Paraguayans forgot about high altitude. As one of my older kids might say, "Yeeah, right!"

I believe the phrase that Evo used in reaction to the request for a new law governing the vote was, "not one comma."

Manfred Reyes Villa 'Just Says No'

Of course, the really great act to watch is our own dear Governor here in Cochabamba, the well-coifed Manfred Ryes Villa (picutured above). If you blink for three seconds you might miss his latest change of position on the recall vote.

In January of 2007, when clashing protests for and against him threw the City of Cochabamba into a bloody street battle, Manfred proposed precisely such a vote as the solution to the nation's political stalemate. When Morales and the Congress actually approved the vote in May, unlevel formula included, Manfred took to CNN to tell those listening that if Bolivia had only listened to him and convened such a vote earlier that lives would have been saved. Then a couple of weeks ago Manfred joined with some of his fellow opposition governors to say that, regardless of it being set by national law, he wasn't going to participate.

Such things happen when you read unpleasant poll results.

Since then all of the other objecting opposition governors have basically taken the position that, even though the vote formula is unfair, a law is a law and they are gearing up their campaigns. We can only imagine the choice words they have had for PODEMOS Senators in private.

But not Manfred. Yesterday he announced that he will not participate in the vote and if the votes stack up against him on August 10th he will not leave office. Well, so much for bragging rights on CNN, I suppose.

So let us imagine a scenario. Manfred, who may or may not have won the 48% support he needed had he campaigned, does not campaign so as to add to his 'the election is not legitimate' argument later. As a result he loses, perhaps substantially given the glee with which MAS supporters would like to oust him.

Manfred's opponents, led by MAS, declare him to be Cochabamba's ex-Governor and Evo names a replacement to his liking (Evo gets to do this whether he wins or loses, since he remains President for 90 days pending new elections). Manfred, on the other hand, declares the vote invalid and himself the still-Governor of Cochabamba.

And if that happens don't doubt for a moment that the conflict will spread to the streets. In a heartbeat Cochabamba could look once again like what it did in the last street battle over Manfred, in January 2007, only this time it will be that battle on steroids. Keep that in mind if you have travel plans here in late August.

Hunger Strike for Labor Rights at Bata Shoe Factory in Cochabamba

If anyone abroad pays a look at Bolivia these days, the chances are pretty good that they won’t get past the main event of 'Evo Politics.'

The Governors vs. Evo. Evo vs. the United States. La Paz vs. Santa Cruz. And on an on. The historic political struggles at the top of Bolivian politics have drawn attention away from other urgent political struggles at the base of Bolivian life, where actually the stakes are higher for most people.

Such is the case today here in Cochabamba as factory workers and union leaders enter the second week of a hunger strike demanding the restoration of labor rights at the Monaco shoe factory. Monaco is the local subsidiary of the Canadian-based global shoe conglomerate, Bata.

Leaders of the Union of Factory Workers here say that labor conditions at the shoe plant in nearby Quillacollo have been deteriorating for years. The union sites, among other complaints:

1. New workers at the Bata subsidiary are forced to renounce their labor rights as a condition of being hired.

2. New workers are not fully compensated for overtime hours worked, as Bolivian labor law requires.

3. Workers have reported threats and intimidation from corporate managers designed to threaten union activity.

4. Workers have been directed by managers to lie about how far they live from the factory, losing access to transportation assistance.

5. The wage gap between factory workers and foremen has grown so dramatically that some workers on the shop floor earn less than 4% of the wages paid to shop foremen.

Union and worker frustration at these developments finally boiled over late last month with the sudden firing of a 54-year-old worker at the plant, Alejandro Saravia. Saravia has worked for Bata's subsidiary for 28 years and was fired seven months shy of becoming eligible for the modest retirement benefits fought for by the union.

Bolivian labor law requires that fired workers be given clear notice in writing of the reasons for the dismissal, which Bata's Bolivian managers have refused to do in the case. According to Saravia, he was summarily fired by a Bata manager in his late 20s after getting into an argument over whether the factory worker was at his assigned post. Saravia, who first went to work at the factory in 1980, disputes the accusation. His firing's close proximity to his becoming eligible for retirement benefits also raises other questions about why Bata's managers acted as they did.

On June 30 Saravia and four others, including Factory Workers Union leader Oscar Olivera, began an indefinite hunger strike to demand Saravia's reinstatement and a response to the charges of labor abuses at the factory. Straddled across worn out old mattresses on the union's floor the strikers also note that the Morales government has failed to come to workers' assistance, despite demands for action made to Labor Minister Walter Delgadillo.

"If neoliberalism left something intact, it was the factory worker movement," said Olivera, writing from the factory workers headquarters that was once converted into a torture facility by the nation's former dictators. "The industrial workers of the cities who, despite all the difficulties of this 25 year of struggle, have managed to maintain our culture and values, tucked inside our hearts and veins and houses and factories and union headquarters."

The union and the hunger strikers are writing directly to Bata's Canadian owners, Thomas and Sonja Bata, calling on them to send a corporate representative to Cochabamba to investigate labor abuses at their factory here.

With research assistance from Boris Rios, Leny Olivera and Aldo Orellana.

Photo Credit: Ukhampacha Bolivia

Back from One Balkans, Home to Another

bal·kan·ized: to break up (as a region or group) into smaller and often hostile units.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

I have found myself to have a new secret power. I can now recite the major headlines in any given Bolivian daily newspaper without even reading it.

Governors and Morales in New Battle

More Protests as Inflation Soars.

Morales Criticizes U.S.

U.S. Criticizes Morales

None of this is because I am clairvoyant. 'Polarization' and 'Bolivian politics' have become so synonymous now that if you look in a dictionary for one of those terms it tells you to see the other. Having just spent two weeks working in the Balkans (Kosovo and Montenegro) I can't help but be struck by the comparison. There the era is 'post-conflict' and new governments are trying to put things back together. Here the era is 'a-new-conflict-a-day' and those leading seem pretty intent on pulling things apart.

So, in the interest of provoking more spirited debate on the topic, here are some reflections and analysis about the Balkanization of Bolivia.

Means and Ends

Every now and then, though less of late, you hear political or social leaders clamor about the importance of the 'rule of law.' It is a principle that has become almost quaint in Bolivia. Politicians and movements both left and right have made it clear that 'the law' in Bolivia is something roughly akin to stopping on a red light in Cochabamba – a thing that is advisory only.

Let's begin, in fairness, with the left. In the days when Evo and many of his current allies were on the outside, the law was always something that needed to flex in response to bigger social demands. Road blockades, destruction of public buildings, the shutdown of cities and other tactics were always considered acceptable acts when needed to get the attention of governments. The strategic principles were clear – find the spaces of power and occupy them and make the nation ungovernable until demands were met or the government fell.

And today, the right and regional autonomy movements inspired and led by the right cheerily imitate those same strategies and tactics. Find the spaces of power and occupy them. Make the nation ungovernable until demands are met or the government falls.

Using ends to justify means is nothing new in politics, but it has basically become the rule in Bolivia, including by the political right.

Take the autonomy votes in Santa Cruz and elsewhere. Is it legitimate to hold a vote to take a formal public pulse on the topic? Yes indeed, legitimate and legal and a great tactic if you plan on winning big. But can a region unilaterally renegotiate fundamental issues in the regional/national distribution of authority? Well, now that wouldn’t be legal. Last night a taxi driver and I came up with this metaphor. What if, after we agreed that I'd pay 15 Bolivianos to go from Cochabamba to Tiquipaya, I announced on arrival that 5 Bs. seemed a fairer price and paid that? Neither does the Bolivian Constitution allow for such sudden one-sided changes.

Or take the Governors of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Pando, Ben and Cochabamba, who suddenly announced a week ago that they weren't going to participate in the August 10 'revocatoria' vote approved by the Congress and President – a law actually initiated by the opposition to Morales. It is a bit hard to take pious declarations about respect for law from a group of politicians who then say, 'Okay, but that law we don't like, so screw it.' The political aerobatics by Cochabamba's Governor, Manfred Reyes Villa are especially breathtaking. Less than two months ago he was bragging about his original call for such a vote and declaring on CNN, "How many lives and confrontations would have been avoided if in that moment we had approved the law?" Now he just wants to ignore it. Slick.

The sad thing is that in a political environment in which ends mean so much and means mean so little, there isn't even a very focused debate on what those ends ought to be.

What's at Stake?

It is not however, particularly difficult to spot what are the genuine public policy issues that reside beneath the political power plays at hand right now in Bolivia. The fundamental questions that divide the nation remain:

Land Reform: What land would the government give to the landless? How would the land in private hands be compensated for? Who would be eligible to receive the land and in exchange for what commitments? What support would the government provide them to help them make that land productive?

Gas and Oil: How will the soaring profits from Bolivia's gas and oil – courtesy of both soaring global prices and increased taxes on foreign companies – be divided between the regions where it sits and the regions where it does not sit? What role should the Bolivian state have in exploration, production and sale and how can it do that effectively?

Autonomy: What political authority – in the fields of justice, education, resource management, and others – will be reserved for indigenous communities, regional governments, and local governments?

The Presidency: Can Bolivians, if they choose to do so, re-elect their President and Vice-President and if so, how many times?

These are some of the concrete issues at the heart of the divide and none have been raised into full public debate. All have been obscured by a dangerous stew of political power plays, over-heated rhetoric and overt racism. As recipes for Balkanization go, it’s a pretty good one.

To be clear, the divide in Bolivian politics existed long before the current actors took the stage. Bolivia is a nation deeply divided by race and class. But both Morales and his opponents have done a masterful job of making the divide new and different.

Opponents of Morales, for reasons racial, economic, political, regional, and strategic, made a clear choice early on to treat his election as a heavy train headed down the tracks straight at them and tried to throw everything in front of that train they could to stop it. Their July 2006 election campaign (for the Constituent Assembly) tried the "Hugo Chavez! Hugo Chavez!" approach and failed miserably. They then scored a good political victory with the demand for a 2/3 vote on everything before that Assembly.

But the regional autonomy campaigns and demand to move the national capital to Sucre, that was pure political genius.

Where once Evo faced an opposition that one could genuinely classify as the old elite, he now faced one that was regional, taking with it even many of the lower income parts of the rebel departments. If I am a woman selling gum on a street corner in Santa Cruz, who do I like better – the President who wants to take a full cut of gas and oil revenue for El Alto or the regional leaders who say keep it here. Regional identity beat class identity. And Evo helped his opponents mightily, with confrontational appeals to his base that pushed a lot of people in the middle into the greetings arms of the opposition.

Y Ahora, Que?

What does this mean? Okay, here's a guess. Political stalemate for two and a half years. Regions will seize autonomy where they can (by blocking land reform, for example), knowing that Morales will not send in the Army to stop them. They won't be able to extend autonomy where it would take national cooperation, for example getting a bigger share of gas revenue.

And then the opposition will run out a long political clock.

Absent a new Constitution – which seems a more and more distant possibility with each passing month – Bolivia will head into new national elections in December of 2010 in which Evo can not be a candidate and in which he has groomed no successor with a chance. And then once again out of power, it will be the left's turn to show once again that it still knows how to make Bolivia ungovernable from the other side.

Now, I want to admit a couple of caveats to this analysis:

First, my more revolutionary friends will quickly dismiss this as a 'reformist' analysis, which it is. Many prefer to see what Evo represents as a revolution, a movement to pull the existing political and social order up by its roots and start anew, with equality replacing privilege as the national organizing principle. In many parts of the nation, the altiplano in particular, that may well be true. But most of Evo's actions are hardly revolutionary and amidst the Bolivians I interact with, be it my neighbors in the cow fields or the vendors in the street, what I hear about isn't revolution but dreams of lower-priced food, a little political stability for a while, and a shot at a living income.

Second, at the risk of channeling former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in Bolivia it isn't the 'known unknowns' that will trip you up. It's the 'unknown unknowns.' Just when you think that the course of events in Bolivia seems to have a discernable pattern to it, some event turns that pattern on its head – the people kick out Bechtel, or Evo wins, or people start killing each other on the streets of Cochabamba.

Let's hope the surprises ahead here are good ones.