Pubdate: Sat, 06 Jul 2002
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Hector Tobar and Andrew Enever, Special to the Times
Note: Staff writer Hector Tobar reported from Buenos Aires and special 
correspondent Enever from La Paz.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

U.S. ENVOY CRITICIZED IN MESSY AFTERMATH OF BOLIVIAN VOTE

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The election to pick this Andean nation's next president 
has devolved into a morass of accusations and conspiracy theories, with an 
American diplomat and a former coca farmer at the center of the controversy.

Did U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha shape the outcome of the election by 
publicly attacking a leftist candidate who is critical of U.S. foreign 
policy. Three of the top four vote-getters in Sunday's election seem to 
think so.

After six days of vote counting, nearly complete official returns Friday 
left the race a virtual three-way tie. Bolivia's Congress will meet Aug. 6 
to choose the next president from the top two vote-getters. Gonzalo Sanchez 
de Lozada, the center-right candidate who served as president from 1993 to 
1997, appeared likely to win, despite having garnered just 22.5% of the 
vote as of Friday evening.

But Evo Morales, the Aymara Indian and former coca farmer who founded the 
Movement Toward Socialism, could also be a big winner. Long an opponent of 
U.S.-backed efforts to eliminate the farming of coca leaves--used, among 
other things, to make cocaine--Morales is now poised to become the leader 
of the largest opposition party in Congress.

All 157 seats in both houses of Congress were at stake in the election. 
Morales' party won seven seats in the 27-member Senate and 26 seats in the 
130-member Chamber of Deputies, making the Movement Toward Socialism the 
second-largest party in both houses of Congress, behind the Nationalist 
Revolutionary Movement, or MNR, of Sanchez de Lozada.

"I am happy. There is enormous satisfaction, above all for the people, the 
people who are discriminated against," said Morales, best known for 
organizing coca farmers in the region around Cochabamba in central Bolivia. 
"The people have voted against any further eradication of coca, not only in 
Cochabamba but in all Bolivia."

Morales and his followers say that coca is a traditional crop used for home 
remedies and that the farmers who grow it would go broke if forced to grow 
something else. Most analysts here say support for Morales grew--from 4% in 
polls earlier this year to 20.8% in Sunday's election--thanks in large 
measure to Rocha's repeated attacks on the coca growers.

Just days before the vote, Rocha suggested that a Morales victory would 
mean the end of U.S. aid.

"The Bolivian electorate must consider the consequences of choosing leaders 
somehow connected with drug trafficking and terrorism," he said in a speech 
in the rural region of Chapare on June 26.

To many, Morales became a symbol of national honor in the face of "Yankee 
imperialism."

Now, his strong showing has thrown the political process into turmoil. The 
leaders of all the major parties have said they would not join a coalition 
government with Morales. But leaders of those same parties do not seem keen 
to make a deal with Sanchez de Lozada and the MNR either.

On Thursday, spokesmen for two major parties claimed that the U.S. 
ambassador's statements were part of a plan to help Sanchez de Lozada win. 
The ambassador, the argument went, attacked Morales to divert votes from 
more centrist candidates, including the second-place finisher, Manfred 
Reyes Villa, the mayor of Cochabamba, who received 20.9% of the vote.

Victor Gutierrez, a spokesman for Reyes Villa, claimed the ambassador's 
statements had caused a 10% shift of votes to Morales, costing Reyes Villa 
a clear victory. Reyes Villa boycotted a July 4 party at the American 
Embassy in protest. Jaime Paz Zamora, of the Movement of the Revolutionary 
Left, which finished fourth, called the ambassador's statements "a form of 
electoral terrorism."

Morales has said that his party will not ally itself with any of the major 
candidates and that his block of deputies and senators will form an 
alternative legislature that will rule "from the street."

Morales is likely to find allies in at least one other party that made 
strong gains in the election. The Aymara-Quechua Indian coalition led by 
Felipe Quispe is projected to take eight seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

Quispe has suggested that Bolivia's impoverished Indian population might 
soon launch an insurrection against a government that continues to be 
dominated by descendants of Europeans.
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