Morales Seeks to Continue Bolivia ‘Revolution’ After Vote Today

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg

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.”

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

[struggle4progress]

1. Bolivia's Morales seen cruising to re-election (WaPo)

By Eduardo Garcia and Kevin Gray
Reuters
Sunday, December 6, 2009; 1:02 AM

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose leftist economic policies have made him broadly popular with the poor but angered business leaders, is expected to win re-election on Sunday, allowing him to expand state control over the economy.

A victory by Morales would solidify his dominance over Bolivian politics and further weaken a divided conservative opposition tied to the country's business elite.

Opinion polls show Morales, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, taking more than 50 percent of the vote and his Movement Toward Socialism party could win control of Congress.

Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, nationalized important sectors of the economy in his first term, including energy and mining companies, which generated a windfall for state coffers that he has used to boost social spending ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/06/AR2009120600138.html

[Peace Patriot]

6. "Opinion polls show Morales, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez...". Did you know that

Lulu da Silva, president of Brazil, is a close friend and ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?

If you do, you wouldn't know it from Rotters, the Associated Pukes or other multinational conglomerate 'news' monopolies.

I don't call them Rotters and Pukes for nothing.

"Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose leftist economic policies have made him broadly popular with the poor but angered business leaders..."."

Gratuitous remarks like this ("angered business leaders")--without attribution or quantification--and considering Morales' outstanding management of Bolivia's economy--are following a SCRIPT which is trying to make social justice and independence (from the World Bank/IMF and other international banksters) look "bad for business," when this is demonstrably not the case in Bolivia and Venezuela.

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2009/12/bolivias-economy-toldya-so.html
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/bolivia-2009-12.pdf
http://www.euronews.net/2009/12/06/bolivia-s-morales-set-for-re-election/
http://www.periodico26.cu/english/features/november2009/evo-elections120509.html

-----------------------------

Get these Associated Pukes openers:

----------------

Morales highly favored for re-election in Bolivia

By FRANK BAJAK (AP) – 32 minutes ago

LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales, a coca-grower at odds with Washington but hugely popular at home for empowering Bolivia's long-suppressed indigenous majority, was expected to coast to re-election on Sunday.

Such a victory would augur further revolutionary change, though opponents say they fear Morales will curb free speech and human rights.

Bolivia's voters were also choosing a new Congress, with Morales' stridently leftist Movement Toward Socialism hoping for a two-thirds majority so it can dictate terms of a law on indigenous territorial self-rule.

A super-majority would also give the 50-year-old incumbent the votes needed to amend the constitution so he could run for a third straight term, though he has been evasive on the issue. (MORE)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gblaeheHgKvDQHSmSDeqMsjjX0pwD9CDRV9O0

:puke:

-----------------------

Amusing rundown on international rotterism in the 'news' (re Bolivian election):

http://casa-del-duderino.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-i-learned-about-bolivian-elections.html#more

[beyond cynical]

9. Revolution...? 60% living in poverty is surely something worth fighting for.

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

2. 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/

[Greyhound]

3. Is that what hope looks like? n/t

[reggie the dog]

4. Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela,

that is what hope in action looks like...

[Braulio]

13. I don't know about Uruguay, but Ecuador and Venezuela are down

Economic statistics for both Ecuador and Venezuela are turning grim in a hurry. The brain drain in Venezuela is accelerating...and its oil industry is collapsing. Today I heard from a Venezuelan friend that 3 out of 4 of the extra heavy oil upgraders in the Orinoco fields are out of order. Meanwhile the government insists all new PDVSA professionals have to be communist party members. They're heading down the drain in a hurry.

[Vidar]

5. That is change we can believe in, as opposed to Obama's dog & pony show.

[Judi Lynn]

7. 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

[Selatius]

10. I hope the opposition's plan in the Senate is defeated.

Morales cannot pull an FDR if both houses of Congress are not on the same page.

[Judi Lynn]

11. You know they're going to try anything at all up to and including assassination attempts.

Hopefully the people's landslide-elected President will have enough protection to keep himself out of harm's way. There have been so many close calls.

I'm waiting, too, to see what's going to work out for the legislatures. If we can go on what's been written so far, it sounds as if they are REALLY outnumbered now, knock on wood. They are simply unaccustomed to not being in total control of the country. Remember they even were able to control all aspects of Bolivian law so tightly they wouldn't even allow indigenous Bolivian citizens to walk on the sidewalks (for which they paid taxes) until 1952, after a revolution.

[New Dawn]

8. K&R

[Odin2005]

12. Viva Morales!