In Bolivia, the Socialist Evo Morales wins the prassidal election
With a victory victory Evo Morales had probably not expected himself. After the end result, the 46-year Aymara-Indio was chosen on Sunday with 51 percent of the votes for the art president Bolivia. Choice forecasts had neither added to him nor the Neoliberal Challenger Jorge Quiroga the jump over the 50 percent mark. With the absolute majority, the country is now saving a undemocratic procedure. According to Bolivian suffrage, the Prasident is determined by Parliament, unless any candidates in the first ballot reach the absolute majority. A runoff is not provided. The regulation in the past had an unprecedented drawer for influence and posts between the parties as well as a direct corruption and voice purchase.
Evo Morales
The President of the Movement to Socialism (Movimiento Al Socialismo, MAS) owes its victory to two developments. On the one hand, his party has been systematically recruited in recent months around a covenant with the burger. During the social unrest, on the 6. June for the jerk of Prasident Carlos Mesa led and thus paved the way to new elections (crisis posted in Bolivia), the Mas in Parliament negotiated with legal parties, while Evo Morales moved the demonstrators power of his popularity for the demolition of the protests. This procedure had secured moral the trust of parts of the upper class. On the other hand, the MAS has risen since its basic in 1987 in the mabe, as the old parties have dismantled by corruption, catering industry and mismanagement themselves. An a similar process has also made in Venezuela in 1998 for the election victory of Hugo Chavez and his movement of a fun republic.
The National Revolutionary Movement (MVImiento Nacional Revolucionario, MNR) claused in Bolivia 1941 was able to unite 6.7 percent on Sunday. Also, the two candidates besides Evo Morales, Jorge Quiroga and Samuel Doria Medina, obviously had no confidence in the old party code. They founded with Podemos (we can) and the Unidad Nacional (national unity, UN) two new groups. At Quiroga, 31.9 percent of the votes accounted for, Doria Medina received 8.2 percent.
Arbitration and social problem: the KOKA question
Evo Morales had to expand its political influence mainly with the demand for a legalization of the cultivation of Koka. Around 80 percent of Bolivian population is one of the indigenous groups. The KOKA cultivation has a high traditional value in this majority of events. Many families depend economically from the cultivation of the Koka plant. The MAS under Evo Morales had therefore positioned itself mainly against the US government. Washington has been defending compromised the destruction of Koka fields in Sudamerica, so as to get the drug trafficking in the handle.
Especially in Colombia, but also in Bolivia and Ecuador, this policy had devastating social implications. Due to the application of herbicides, fertile ground were poisoned in these countries. Organizations of agricultural workers and human rights groups complain of health consequences for the residents of the affected areas.
The MAs decided against a continuing of this aggressive evolving of KOKA cultivation. The drug problem, so demands morales for years, to be recorded in consumer states. The dispute has concrete political implications. Canceling of Koka Annuity is the responsibility of Drug Enforcement Administration (Drugsbewaptungshordorde, DEA), which works closely with the AUBE posts of the US Army in Sudamerika. The DEA was therefore repeatedly kept to ask the militarization of the region through the USA. In fact, the accusation of "drug terrorism" from the USA was already charged against the MAS.
Reversing economic policy expected
The negative attitude of Washington also explains from the economic policy program of the MAS. Evo Morales is considered the adversary of the neoliberal politics of the past years. Above all, it occurs for the reward nationalization of natural gas deposits, which had been privatized in 1996. Since then, the following protests had no longer allowed to rest. Bolivia has currently 1.5 trillion cubic meters of fundamental natural gas deposits. At the same time it is the armest state of Sudamerikas.
Aubritichtichtes Morales decided against the US free trade planes. Washington wants to eliminate the customs barriers from Alaska to Feuerland with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (Total American Free Trade Zone, FTAA / ALCA). In Latin America, however, the project meets increasing resistance (gap between America and the USA). Also Evo Morales, which is close to the Cuban head of state Fidel Castro and the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, rejects a support of this project. Like Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, he speaks for regional economic integration for regional economic integration. Its designated Viceprasident Alvaro Garcia Linera propagates an "andinen capitalism". The aim of the policy must first be the development of the domestic concomity. After all, 70 percent of people worked in the city in family businesses, in the country 95 of agriculture depended on. Garcia Linera wants to connect to the social development project of the 1952 revolution and demand a "strong state capitalism".
Revolutionary is by no means. But his principle breaks with the Neoliberal Dogma of the past years. The coming months will show if the US government is allowing that.