What will Evo Morales learn from leftist governments in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela?
Yet Morales’ hardest work may have just begun. He takes power as the first indigenous president in a country where nearly two-thirds of the population identifies with the Aymara, Quechua, or other indigenous group. The same fraction of the country lives in poverty, and the divide between rich and poor closely follows racial lines. Morales has announced plans to nationalize the country’s gas reserves, rewrite the constitution in a popular assembly, redistribute land to poor farmers, and change the rules of the U.S.-led war on drugs in Bolivia. If he helps spur on the radical change that his social movement base demands, he will face pressure from corporate investors and from the White House. If he chooses a more moderate path, Bolivia’s social movements have pledged to organize the same type of strikes and protests that have ousted two previous presidents in the past two years. – Dangl & Engler – Long live the people of Bolivia! No compromise!
