1-10-06, 8:52 am

In the 18th  December 2005 Bolivian presidential elections Evo Morales  received  53% of the vote --  1,158,431 out of the 2,185,960 votes cast. His Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) defied  media predictions that he would obtain only 35% of the vote -- which would have left the Bolivian parliament to decide on who the new president would be. 

Podemos, the main right wing, pro-IMF and pro-US party, led by Harvard-trained Jorge Quiroga  received  30% of the vote.  With the Movimiento Indigena Pachakuti’s (MIPI) vote, the left parties together secured  55% of the vote.  When we consider the scandalous exclusion of 1,000,000 voters from the electoral register – people who happen to live mainly in MAS strongholds -- then the defeat of Bolivia’s pro-neoliberal forces takes on an even greater significance.  The MAS also did extremely well in the parliamentary elections.

In his election campaign manifesto Morales  included measures with wide popular support  such as the legalisation of coca leaf production and the nationalisation of the gas industry.   

Evo Morales will become the second president of indigenous background in the history of Latin America. (The first was Benito Juarez, in Mexico during the second half of the 19th century). A new page has opened in the history of Bolivia, where the election of Evo Morales to the presidency means that the country’s majority indigenous population (60% of the population) have an historical opportunity of beginning to redress the centuries of exclusion, discrimination, poverty and brutal exploitation to which they have been subjected by the dominant white elite.

Bolivia’s reassertion of control over its natural resources, particularly gas and water, will be a critical factor if Evo Morales is to begin to roll back this infamous history.

Another critical factor will be US policy towards the Morales government. In an outright warning to Morales, Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, in an interview with the Chilean press prior to Morales’ victory, stated that the future US-Bolivia relationship would 'depend on the type of relationship they want to have with the US', and 'much will depend on the type of policies that are carried out, particularly economic, energetic and anti-narcotic policies'. According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 'this proclamation reeks of Washington’s attempt to coerce regional leaders into accepting its self-serving policies, such as FTAA, while slyly threatening those who do not comply'.

Morales’ election represents a major strengthening of  Hugo Chavez’s position in the region and  a dramatic setback for that of the United States. The use of the war against drug-trafficking as the pretext to expand US military influence in Latin America has been  weakened by Morales stating that he will defend the Bolivian people’s ancestral right to cultivate and consume coca leaves. Morales has demanded that the US respect  Bolivian sovereignty and announced that subordination to the 'empire' has come to an end. He has also called on others to help build the 'Patria Grande' -- Simon Bolivar’s  vision for a united Latin America and has publicly identified himself and his movement with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Morales joins a growing number of left-leaning Latin American presidents who are against neo-liberalism -- who want to halt the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement  and follow an alternative path of development.  On December 20th, 2005, President Chavez sent a letter of congratulations to Evo Morales stating: 'Without  doubt, Evo, our jubilation is also huge -- with the [building of] the Patria of Bolivar and Sucre begins a new and definitive battle for dignity and sovereignty.' Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Uruguay immediately offered Bolivia full membership of Mercosur. Kofi Annan, UN General Secretary, and Javier Solana, the EU Foreign Minister praised the exemplary nature of Bolivia’s recent electoral process and called on the Bolivian people to back their new president.

The Venezuelan MPs in the Latin American Parliament made a statement on December 18th, 2005, celebrating the people of Bolivia’s democratic victory: 'Our Bolivian brothers and sisters, oppressed and reviled by a neocolonial system of exploitation have expressed their democratic will to be free and, as from today, are making their own history.  Bolivia expressed in free, secret and universal elections its right to elect a president who will implement the demands for nationalisation of the [country’s] hydrocarbon resources and the establishment of a national constituent assembly.

The strategy of the Bolivian oligarchy to put the brakes on Evo Morales’ victory through the illegal exclusion from the electoral register of one million citizens was unable to frustrate the destiny of its people. Evo Morales is now the president of the poor, of the excluded, of the marginalised, of the peasants and indigenous peoples; all the dreams and hopes for a dignified, free and sovereign Bolivia rest with the leadership of the new president and it will be Bolivians who will be agents as well as watchers of the coming changes.

Honour and glory to Simon Bolivar’s favourite daughter for paying just homage on the 175th anniversary of the death of Bolivia’s Liberator! Now is the time when honest men and women are embarking on a struggle to secure the future of their children and of all Latin Americans; and we Venezuelan men and women applaud and rejoice the victory of this great Latin American, compañero Evo Morales. Viva a free and sovereign Bolivia, the people are now the government!' The Venezuela Information Centre congratulates Evo Morales and the MAS on their historic  victory. The electoral triumph of the Bolivian people deepens the Bolivarian integration of Latin America  and  will  undoubtedly strengthen the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela.

From Venezuela Information Centre