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Text:	BOLIVIA: New Grassroots Political Actors Emerge from Local Elections Franz Chávez LA PAZ, Dec 6 (IPS) - The political parties that have governed Bolivia over the past 22 years have begun to yield ground to around 400 civic and indigenous movements, which for the first time were able to participate in local elections, on Sunday. Although in the nine provincial capitals most of the mayors and many city councillors were re-elected, the triumph of candidates fielded by indigenous and other grassroots citizen groups has given rise to a new political scenario around the country. The centre-right Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), which has governed the country three times since the return to democracy in 1982 but lost the presidency in October 2003 when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign after a month of protests, has been shoved into the background by voters. The MNR rose to power in the revolution of 1952, when it nationalised Bolivia's mines, declared land reform and introduced universal suffrage. But support for the party plunged last year when at least 70 people were killed in the month-long protests, dubbed the "gas war", after the army was called out to squelch the demonstrations led by those opposed to Sánchez de Lozada's natural gas and energy policy. And with a few exceptions, the centre-left Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) and the conservative New Republican Force (NFR) followed the same route as their former ally, the MNR, and were similarly unable to relive past electoral successes on Sunday. By contrast, the leftist Movement to Socialism (MAS) headed by indigenous lawmaker Evo Morales, the leader of Bolivia's coca growers, as well as the new centre-right National Unity (UN) led by cement baron Samuel Doria Medina made headway in a large part of the country's municipalities, according to the preliminary returns. President Carlos Mesa, who replaced Sánchez de Lozada when he was forced to step down on Oct. 17, 2003, said Sunday night that the elections were "a novel experiment in democratic openness" in which a "new political space opened up." He spoke of "a realignment of the political parties," after being informed of the partial returns. The final results will be announced in about a week. "This is the first election in which the government has neither participated nor sponsored candidates," Minister of Popular Participation Robert Barbery told IPS. Barbery said he was pleased with the implementation of the Law on Citizen Groups and Indigenous Peoples, which made it possible for these organisations to present their own candidates. Before the new legislation went into effect, all candidates had to be sponsored by the 17 legally registered political parties. In the view of Organisation of American States (OAS) election observer Alejandro Balsells, from Guatemala, the political system has been reinvigorated with the incorporation of new actors. "A new debate has opened up, with greater options for the citizens," he commented to IPS. "Indigenous people and ranchers are disputing, vote by vote, the city government of San Ignacio de Moxos" in the central department (province) of Santa Cruz, said a surprised foreign correspondent as she described the struggle between an alliance of the MNR-MIR, representing the interests of large landowners in that area, and a local indigenous organisation. Indigenous people comprise a majority of the population of 9.2 million in Bolivia, South America's poorest country. And most Indians are still steeped in poverty, despite the fact that this country has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the region, after Venezuela. Sunday's municipal elections will not soon be forgotten. Although some social leaders had gained strength and been elected to political office in the past few years, until now campesinos (peasant farmers) and indigenous people merely participated in elections by casting their votes, and resigned themselves to watching the economic elites hold onto decision-making power. But in the town of Uriondo, in southern Bolivia, grape picker Inocencio Sagredo celebrated his victory Monday, while in the coca-growing zone of Chulumani in the west, coca planter Dionicio Torrez, backed by the Association of Coca Producers, apparently made it to the mayor's office. The new mayor of Yapacaní, in the department of Santa Cruz, will be engineer Juan Siancas, who triumphed at the head of a civic movement called Change for a Better Life. The projections of opinion polls were confirmed in the departmental capitals, with the exception of the central Bolivian cities of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, where the races were extremely close. Human rights lawyer Juan Del Granado, the mayor of La Paz (the seat of government and administrative capital), was re-elected. Del Granado played a key role in putting former dictator Luis García Meza into prison for 30 years. His supporters also won six of the 11 city council seats. Meanwhile, MAS won two seats on the city council of La Paz, while the UN gained one. The election of former police official David Vargas as a city councillor in La Paz, representing a group called United and Sovereign Bolivia-Third Republic, took political analysts by surprise. Vargas led a Feb. 12-13, 2003 police riot against a new tax and was kicked off the police force as a result. Since then, he has gained visibility and popularity, and on Sunday he won votes from groups opposed to privatisation and the liberalisation of the economy. And in the southeastern city of Potosí, Mayor René Joaquino was elected for the third time. His movement, the Social Alliance, took 10 of the 11 seats on the city council. "I will make Potosí one of the cities with the best quality of life," said Joaquino, whose movement is inspired by the thinking of legendary Cuban-Argentine guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Joaquino has followed an urban development model based on community work, in which he himself has played a visible role, using his skills as a bricklayer. To the south, in the city of Tarija, Mayor Oscar Montes Barzón, who was re-elected, polished the battered image of the MIR, which garnered a majority on the city council. In the capital, Sucre, the only woman in a position to be re-elected as mayor in a provincial capital is Aideé Nava, with the Free Bolivia Movement, which apparently won four of the seven seats on the city council. In Cochabamba, Gonzalo Terceros with the Citizens United group appears to have defeated MAS candidate Gonzalo Lema by a narrow margin, although the city council will determine the final result. In the city of Santa Cruz there was a tie between three candidates of citizen groups: Roberto Fernández (21st Century Alliance), Percy Fernández (Together for All United Front) and Oscar Vargas (Unity and Progress). In the western city of Oruro, the new mayor will be Edgar Bazán of the San Felipe de Austria civic movement, and in Trinidad, capital of the northeastern department of Beni, Moisés Shiriqui of the right-wing Nationalist Democratic Action (ADN) was re-elected. In Cobija, the capital of the northern department of Pando, the mayor will be Pablo Bravo, of the ADN, while voters in the sprawling slum city of El Alto, next to La Paz, re-elected Mayor José Luis Paredes with the grassroots movement Plan Progreso. (FIN/2004)

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