Pubdate: Wed, 10 Jul 2002
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2002 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Juan Forero, New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

ANTI-U.S. CANDIDATE A FINALIST IN BOLIVIA VOTE

LIMA, Peru -- Evo Morales, an upstart Bolivian politician and indigenous 
leader who vows to end Washington-backed efforts to eradicate drug crops, 
appeared virtually certain to be a finalist for the presidency, according 
to returns from the first round of voting.

With only 475 votes uncounted from the June 30 election, Morales was second 
with 581,864 votes, 706 more than Manfred Reyes, a former mayor and 
military officer picked by pollsters to win. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, 72, 
who was president from 1993 to 1997, was first, with more than 600,000 votes.

Since no candidate won a majority outright, Congress will choose the next 
president from the two front-runners by Aug. 6, the day the new leader is 
to be inaugurated.

"Evo Is Second," declared a headline in La Prensa, a leading newspaper in 
La Paz, the capital.

Morales' showing is a blow to the United States, which has financed a 
largely successful effort to eradicate most of Bolivia's coca, which is 
used to produce cocaine. Morales, 42, a socialist, has led anti-eradication 
marches by coca farmers and tapped into deep resentments among the 
country's majority Indian population, who feel the market reforms of recent 
years have impoverished them further.

Business leaders, though, are concerned with Morales' rise. "This is a bad 
sign," said Gary Rodriguez, president of the Institute of Foreign Trade, a 
La Paz group that lobbies for Bolivian industries.

Morales could win if his party, the Movement Toward Socialism, is backed by 
Reyes' party, the New Republican Force, and the Leftist Revolutionary 
Movement, led by another former president, Jaime Paz. Both parties have 
taken on populist agendas and been critical of Sanchez de Lozada, but it 
remained unclear Tuesday whom they would back in Congress.

Morales, a harsh critic of the United States, has charged that the U.S. 
ambassador in La Paz, Manuel Rocha, has been pressuring leading lawmakers 
on behalf of Sanchez de Lozada.

In a televised interview Tuesday, Reyes said he had recently met with the 
ambassador. "I did not receive any pressures," Reyes said, but "what the 
ambassador did make clear is that there should not be any kind of an 
alliance with Evo Morales."

Rocha could not be reached for comment Tuesday. A State Department official 
called claims of U.S. manipulation in the electoral process "absolutely 
absurd."

Whatever happens, the results so far are seen as a remarkable turnaround 
for Morales, who had minuscule support just two months ago.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager