July
11, 2002
Narco News '02
Bolivia:
The Power
of the
People
Part
I of a Series:
Democracy's
Abundant Harvest
By Luis Gómez
Narco News Andean
Bureau Chief
"This
has been a fight of money against conscience… and we have
won… but we still have much to do… Our fight did not
end on June 30th."
-
Evo Morales
On
the morning of June 30th (here, below
the equator, where it is winter), the Andean range awoke covered
with snow. This phenomenon, normal in other parts of the world,
determines the volume of the harvest for the Aymaras and Quechuas.
And the snow, that had lasted eight days, was immense. Beginning
at eight a.m., nearly three million Bolivians went to the polls…
some thought about maintaining their status in life, others in
the victory of their party… and many others deposited hope
with each vote.
For almost four months, from Autumn to
Winter in this part of the world, the political panorama has
changed radically. Remember our report
of March 5th about Evo Morales' declaration that he would
be a candidate for the presidency? Well, in those days the polls
(those tricky numbers) gave barely four percent to the Movement
Toward Socialism (MAS) party… and after counting the last
vote, the MAS obtained 20.94 percent of the total… It grew
more than 500 percent. And not only thanks to the people and
the hard work of the organizers, but also in part due to the
Viceroy Manuel Rocha (the almost ex-ambassador of the United
States). "He was the first campaign manager I ever had!
And not just because of his pressures to expel me from Congress.
Every statement he made against us helped us to grow and awaken
the conscience of the people," said Evo, smiling, sipping
a cup of coffee in his campaign headquarters in La Paz.
Listen up, pseudo-democrats of the mass
media and of the dark offices: Evo Morales has returned to break
the record. Beyond being the presidential candidate, Evo also
newly postulated to be the congressman from his district (the
Constitution permits a citizen to be candidate for both posts
at once): The official results give him 86.37 percent of the
vote in his district. Once more, he is the representative of
the people with the largest vote in the history of this democracy.
And the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement
(the MIP party) that has worked in the Andean region of Bolivia,
has gained what belongs to it, too. Felipe
Quispe, "El Mallku," has arrived in Congress with
five of his companions. The Aymaras united with El Mallku are
also, now, represented. From now on, everything indicates, these
two parliamentary blocs will have to join forces to fight against
the neoliberal and right-wing parties for the right to live,
for land, for their sacred coca leaf and for a future that includes
rights for them. Today, 30 percent of Congress (130 House members,
27 Senators) is in indigenous hands, in the hands of social and
union leaders, of honest people who work and continue working
alongside the people. It's been a hard punch to the political
class, that for decades "has been at the service of the
people to make the people serve," Evo comments, still thinking
that come August 6th, when the new government enters, he could
be made president by this Congress.
Read it well, kind readers: The top coca
growers' leader of Bolivia could occupy the presidential seat
in less than a month. The Constitution here establishes that
if no candidate obtains at least 50 percent of the vote - which
is what happened on June 30th - the Congress will designate the
final victor. In that process, the leader of MAS will have less
than fifty percent of these votes, and his election as president
could still happen. "Although this doesn't mean, as we have
said again and again, that we are going to negotiate the people's
vote. If some traditional parties want to vote for us, then,
welcome, we accept them. But we are not going to trade away any
posts or power quotas inside of our government… It would
be absurd to enter into alliances with parties that defend the
neoliberal economic model. We are ready to govern. We want to
rebuild this country," said the MAS' vice presidential candidate,
the veteran journalist and former guerrilla Antonio Peredo Leigue.
On one side are the old parties: The Nationalist
Revolutionary Movement (MNR) with a former president named Gonzalo
Sánchez de Lozada (known as "Goni") at the helm;
also the New Republican Force (NFR), with an ex military coup
member and friend of Bush administration fixer Otto Reich named
Manfred Reyes Villa… and the Revolutionary Left Movement
(MIR), with another ex-president and a gang of traitors of popular
movements and narco-traffickers on top. And other parties, like
that of current president Jorge Quiroga, that barely obtained
more than three percent (is that what Marcela Sanchez of the
Washington Post meant last November
when she tagged Quiroga as a "rising star"?). In front,
already ready to fight for the right that belongs to them, the
ones elected by the people. While everything shakes out, and
I assure you that this will take very little time, we are going
to retrace the route of democracy's most abundant harvest.
"Without
Money"
Last
March 20th, while the parties of the system began to spend various millions of dollars in their campaigns,
the MAS party took the $96,000 dollars in public campaign financing
from the National Electoral Court that it was apportioned as
a small political party. It decided to work with what little
it had, near to the people and to limit its campaign to three
basic messages: For the recuperation of natural resources (today
in the hands of multi-national corporations), for the defense
of the coca leaf (threatened by the eradication demanded from
Washington), and declaring a frontal assault against the neoliberal
economic model.
"We have no money: Please, don't
ask us for money because we don't have it. We have work, there
are many things to do in our struggle and we invite all of you
to join in the work. Don't forget that the MAS party is the political
instrument of the poor, of the marginalized people of this country.
Make it yours, work for it, not for Evo Morales… Remember
that this is not a question of personalities. It is about fighting
to solve our problems, our misery and our hunger," said
Evo during a speech in El Alto, a city of poor people next-door
to La Paz.
And while the leader of the NFR party
went to Miami to the anti-Castro Cuban exile community to beg
money, and to Otto Reich to beg support, Evo was making his only
"out-of-campaign" move. Two days later, on March 22nd,
the peasant farmers' leader of Bolivia traveled to France. The
way the media works down here, he had to go to France to get
the local press to cover his message. There, he spoke to a demonstration
of 4,000 people in which the only speakers were him and the most
important farmer in Europe, Jose Bové. On this day, beyond
reiterating his commitment to the anti-globalization fight, Evo
Morales got to work with a new and revitalizing message: "We
are not alone. In the rest of the world, too, there are people
who fight against the neoliberal model, against hunger. They
are our Zapatista brothers and sisters in Mexico, our brothers
and sisters in Peru, in Ecuador and Colombia, our landless brothers
and sisters in Brazil… even in Europe, with our brother
Bové and other popular leaders… resistence grows
in all parts."
Little by little, traveling often for
days to visit all the communities that awaited him anxiously,
the candidates of the MAS, all of them, spread the message: "We
are the people. We are MAS… Now is the time." And many
centuries of contained rage lent him its ears, lifted its eyes
and extended its hand: the hour to fight had come. "If we
work well during these months," Evo said to his campaign
committee one afternoon in early April, "I believe that
we will be able to double our representation in Congress…
we can grow from four congressmen to eight." And he had
not yet been to all the corners of the country where, he had
no idea, his fight and that of the coca growers would soon take
root in the heart of the people.
Month
One: 11 percent
In
late April, without much worry, the traditional Bolivian media published a poll in which the MAS party of Evo
Morales already had more than 11 percent of the vote in Cochabamba,
the state where the Amazonic Chapare region of Evo is located,
and, nationwide, had 6.4 percent. This already almost met the
goal of eight members of the house of congress, and that one
senator, an elderly mineworker and fighter and political mentor
to many social fighters, Filemón Escobar, could be elected
from Cochabamba. A Senator! Wow! It was like a new toy passing
through many hands. "It's going well, everywhere I go I
see a lot of enthusiasm. I think we can continue growing. The
people are waking up… And I don't believe in the polls.
They always tell us one thing and later on it results that we
have more votes than expected," Evo said then, prophetically,
to a pair of television journalists at the airport.
As if they came from nowhere, the campaign
rallies were growing in attendance. It was no longer a matter
of counting hundreds, but now of thousands. The basic demands
were growing, articulated together: health, education, no more
discrimination, land and autonomy for the original peoples, investment
in the countryside and in small producers. From Potosí,
a very poor region today, came a popular chant: "Evo, you
have to be President of Bolivia." In the forums and debates
the applause multiplied: that MAS candidates met with housewives,
retirees, workers, youths, with all who have been forgotten by
history.
Elder militants of the old Left began
to appear, excited, with the honest and committed intellectuals,
and the companions from other struggles. The Political Instrument
for the Sovereignty of Peoples (the original name of the MAS
party) was transformed from what the government politicians call
"the coca-growers' party" into an immense wave of hope
moving from mouth to mouth. And from this alchemy surged what
was called "the governing program." In this document
the recognized demands and aspirations from all corners were
synthesized: "Because life calls on us to take care, for
its protection… That's why we are present in these elections,
to go into battle against the system and take power."
The war now declared, the Viceroy Manuel
Rocha appeared again... dancing to the same old tango, spitting
more than speaking, demanding rather than analyzing the country.
In an atmosphere of threats, the gringo Ambassador began to "alert"
against the risks of voting for "terrorism." And it
was like throwing gasoline on the fire. But we will speak of
this in Part II, when we get to know "The Ambassador's Tango
and Other Stories."
See you then, kind readers. This story,
your correspondent vows, will continue to be a passionate one.
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Harvesting
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