Posted on 12/18/2005 4:09:33 PM PST by Alter Kaker
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Bolivia's Socialist presidential candidate Evo Morales, who has promised to become Washington's "nightmare," held an unexpectedly strong lead over his conservative rival in Sunday's election, according to two independent exit polls.
The wide margin means Morales, a coca farmer who has said he will end a U.S.-backed anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating the crop used to make cocaine, will likely be declared president in January.
"If (the U.S.) wants relations, welcome," Morales said after voting, holding a news conference where piles of coca leaves were spread atop a Bolivian flag. "But no to a relationship of submission."
Morales had 45 percent of the vote and former President Jorge Quiroga had 33 percent in an Equipso Mori poll. A second poll by the private Ipsos Captura organization showed Morales with a slightly narrower lead of 44.5 percent to 34 percent for Quiroga. Minor candidates were getting the rest.
If Morales fails to win more than 50 percent of the popular vote, Bolivia's newly elected congress must decide the presidency — a parliamentary process that would involve some coalition building and likely be a moderating influence on Morales.
Officials reported that voting went peacefully as the polls closed. Official returns were expected to arrive hours later.
There were some accusations of voters being fraudulently turned away at polls in Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, but national electoral court spokesman Salvador Romero said there had been no confirmed irregularities, and that the people turned away apparently had not voted in last year's municipal elections, as required by law.
The winner starts a five-year term on Jan. 22 as Bolivia's fourth president since August 2002.
Morales, 46, has promised to reverse years of sometimes violent U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate coca fields. Bolivia is the world's third-largest grower of coca, a plant that has traditional, legal uses among the country's Indians but also is used to make cocaine.
At his news conference, Morales said he wanted "bilateral relations so we can look for solutions and accords."
The Aymara Indian street activist also referred to his status as a symbol for many of Bolivia's long-downtrodden Indians, a majority in this country of 8.5 million people.
"I am the candidate of those despised in Bolivian history, the candidate of the most disdained, discriminated against," he said after working through a crowd of admirers — some of whom rushed forward to kiss him — before voting at a decrepit basketball court in the village school.
He compared the struggle of his Movement Toward Socialism party to those of Indian leaders who fought Spanish conquerers, as well as to the independence hero Simon Bolivar and socialist icon Che Guevara.
Voting later in the capital of La Paz, Quiroga, 45, said he would respect the decision of lawmakers and hoped that the congressional process would not lead to the sort of crippling street protests Morales had led in the past.
Without mentioning Morales by name, Quiroga added: "What one has to avoid is that one of the sides tries to air its differences through aggression, through sticks and stones. That is not the way we do things. We advance with proposals, with ideas and programs."
Quiroga served as president from 2001 to 2002 after then-President Hugo Banzer fell ill. He has said he would sell Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves at higher prices and improve infrastructure, education and health care.
In the event of a second round, the newly elected congress will choose the president between the top two vote-getters in mid-January.
In the five presidential elections since 1985, congress has passed over the first place candidate twice. Parties usually bargain to get the votes needed to win — a factor that could make a kingmaker of the centrist third-place candidate, Samuel Doria Medina. He has said he would support the first-place candidate if he wins by at least 5 percentage points.
Hundreds of international monitors, including a group from the Organization of American States, made it one of the mostly closely watched elections in the country's history, and Sunday's voting was conducted under heavy police guard.
Bolivians also were deciding their vice president, all 27 Senate seats, 130 House seats and all nine governorships.
Many Indians blame the country's free-market policies for enriching white elite at the expense of the majority poor.
Morales counts Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez among his friends, along with leftists in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay who have gained power at the ballot box this decade.
The winner will succeed caretaker President Eduardo Rodriguez, a Supreme Court justice appointed by Congress on June 8, two days after street protests ended the 18-month administration of Carlos Mesa.
___
Associated Press Writer Bill Cormier in La Paz contributed to this report.
Not good.
No, This is Disturbing as Hell
When will they ever learn?
We were worried about the USSR once upon a time. They were oceans apart from us.
These guys are practically at our doorstep.
So a drug dealer cartelista becomes a president...that's nothing new for Latin Americans. The UN just awarded the Marti Prize to the lunatic in Venezuela Chavez.
So long Bolivia, nice knowing ya!
another Socialist nation in S. America...disturbing trend
it will come back to bite~it always does.
As the crow flies, they are actually about the same distance away.
Morales has said that Bolivia should collect reparations from Spain for colonialism. That should give his fellow socialist, the Spanish premier Zapatero, a few nightmares of his own.
At least now the refugees from Bolivia will be capitalists and former landowners. Assuming they go through the right legal steps to get here, I heartily welcome them.
What is the Marti Prize?
Good for Boliva,
I don't believe in socialism but it's about time someone told the United States what it could do with it's innane, trillion dollar, endless "war on some drugs". The United States has no right to tell another country what it can or cannot do with it's national product.
Hate to say it but they need us alot mopre then we need them, reality trumps idealogy all the time
The socialists I'd worry about are those at the NYtimes. The socialists in Bolivia can't tell congressmen to jump and get an answer of "how high". The socialists at the NYtimes do that every day.
held an unexpectedly strong lead ...Ap must be out of touch....Fox news has been saying this would happen for 2 days.
The enemy within, if you will.
For your reference:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/15/content_3924328.htm
If their "national product" is a drug like cocaine, we sure the hell CAN tell them to either keep it out of our country, or else we will do what we have to do ourselves.
Arguments to the contrary = typical libertarian claptrap.
Things like this do not help our country, they invariably hurt it.
A.A.C.
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