Morales Seeks to Continue Bolivia ‘Revolution’ After Vote Today

[Judi Lynn]

Morales Seeks to Continue Bolivia ‘Revolution’ After Vote Today
By Jonathan J. Levin

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales will likely win re-election today on pledges to expand his socialist “revolution” by increasing state control over the South American country’s energy and mining industries.

Morales, a 50-year-old former coca farmer and union leader, leads former Governor Manfred Reyes Villa by more than 30 percentage points, according to a survey last month by research company Ipsos Apoyo.

The head of the Movement Toward Socialism party, Morales said he will use a second five-year term to increase state control over the $30.3 billion natural-gas and mining-driven economy and boost stipends to the poor. His government has promised to replace gravel roads with highways across the country and reduce dependence on the export of raw materials.

“This revolutionary process will never fail,” Morales said Dec. 3 at his final campaign rally in the city of El Alto, as supporters packing the streets chanted his name and waved the red, yellow and green national flag. “This process of change belongs to the Bolivian people.”

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=agzDysmFnJsQ

[Judi Lynn]

1. Power of Indian majority to shape Bolivia election

Power of Indian majority to shape Bolivia election
By Frank Bajak
Associated Press / December 5, 2009

CHARAGUA, Bolivia - In Bolivia’s biggest municipality, a scrub-brush expanse of cattle ranches and farms, tomorrow’s national elections aren’t all about Evo Morales.

With Bolivia’s first indigenous president expected to easily win reelection to a five-year term, the focus in Charagua is on the drive for greater political power by the Indian majority of this poor South American nation.

The municipality is one of 12 that vote tomorrow on whether to abandon modern political structures in favor of traditional native governance, with major decisions taken by public assemblies.

The prospect has galvanized the Guarani, the third-largest of the 36 ethnic groups with rights to self-determination enshrined in a new constitution backed by Morales that Bolivians ratified in January.

With Morales’s help, the Guarani have been dismantling the last vestiges of oppression that United Nations investigators in May described as “forced labor and servitude.’’ Indian families in the Chaco region provided live-in labor for large landholders, typically receiving nothing more than food and clothing in exchange.

“That’s what the Guarani people have achieved: breaking feudal power,’’ says Miguel Valdez, a researcher at the nonprofit Center for Research and Promotion of the Peasantry, or CIPCA. “It’s a revolution.’’

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2009/12/05/power_of_indian_majority_to_shape_bolivian_vote/

[Judi Lynn]

2. Polls close in Bolivian elections for president, Congress (1st Lead)

Polls close in Bolivian elections for president, Congress (1st Lead)
Dec 6, 2009, 19:32 GMT

La Paz - Polls closed Sunday without major incidents in Bolivian elections for a new president and National Congress.

Four years after taking office, President Evo Morales - Bolivia's first indigenous head of state - was poised for re-election with a first-round majority.

Some 5 million Bolivians were eligible to vote in the elections, which began at 8 am (1200 GMT). Exit polls were set to be made public soon after polls closed at 4 pm.

Recent opinion polls showed the left-wing populist Morales with the support of 52 per cent of surveyed voters, 34 percentage points ahead of his closest challenger, conservative Manfred Reyes Villa, in a field of eight candidates.

Morales' Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is assured of a majority in the lower house of Congress, with the opposition focused on denying the MAS a majority in the Senate and dominance of the legislative branch.

More:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1517410.php/Polls-close-in-Bolivian-elections-for-president-Congress-1st-Lead#ixzz0Ywi6TdR7