By Franz Chávez
LA PAZ, Dec 16 2005 (IPS)

The growing number of Bolivians excluded from the formal economy over the past two decades may soon be represented at the highest level of government by Evo Morales, the indigenous candidate who is leading the polls for Sunday’s elections.

In the mid-1980s, Bolivia entered a turbulent process of change with the recovery of the citizen rights and freedoms struck down by the military dictatorships that ruled the country since 1964, newfound economic stability brought about by the implementation of a neoliberal free-market model, and an overhaul of the country’s institutions.

But a quarter century later, the balance is negative. The economic stability did not lead to improved distribution of wealth, and official statistics show that 70 percent of Bolivia’s 8.7 million people are poor.

A large number of the poor depend on the illegal cultivation of coca for a living in the central region of Chapare, in the tropical department (province) of Cochabamba.

It was from the ranks of the marginalised, impoverished indigenous sectors who sought a livelihood in the jungle region of Chapare that Morales emerged, first as a trade union leader of the coca growers and today, at the age of 46, as the possible successor to caretaker President Eduardo Rodríguez.

If Morales wins the elections, he will become the first indigenous president in the independent history of Bolivia, where 60 percent of the population identifies with one of the country’s indigenous groups, according to the 2002 census.

“The reign of impunity, party coalitions, the subordination of parliament, the justice system and other institutions to economic interests, and the loss of autonomy by the branches of the state under a repressive model” created fertile ground for Morales’ surge in popularity among the poor, sociologist Juan Ramón Quintana, a former member of the military who is now a professor at universities in La Paz, Lima (Peru), and Quito (Ecuador), told IPS.

The candidacy of Morales, who heads the leftist Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), is staunchly opposed by the United States, as demonstrated by accusations from U.S. embassy spokespersons in La Paz that he had received financing from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Morales’ openly critical stance against U.S. security, trade and foreign policy worries the U.S. government, which fears the emergence of a close alliance between Chávez, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Morales in Bolivia, and other left-leaning leaders in the region.

On a visit to La Paz, Italian academic and activist Giuseppe de Marzo told IPS that governments with a strong social sense, like those of Chávez, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Morales if he wins the elections, are likely to bring about changes that will benefit the poor majorities.

The political awakening of the front-runner in the polls can be traced back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Morales was an impoverished farmer living in the highlands town of Isallavi, in the western department of Oruro. Because of the cold, windy climate and poor soil, the Morales family was only able to raise llamas and plant potatoes and a few other subsistence crops.

At the start of the election campaign, Morales, a MAS lawmaker, showed a group of journalists the mud, thatched-roof house that he lived in until the 1980s. Today, he commutes between La Paz, the seat of Congress, and the city of Cochabamba.

The economic crisis that brought Bolivia to the verge of bankruptcy in 1985, with annual inflation of 25,000 percent, pushed tens of thousands of peasant farmers and 27,000 unemployed miners to seek out new opportunities for survival in Chapare.

But while coca had long been produced for traditional uses – for centuries, peasants have chewed the leaves and drunk coca infusions to help them tolerate hunger, difficult working conditions and high altitudes – rising demand by the producers and distributors of cocaine drove production levels to a new high in Chapare and in the northeastern department of Beni.

Drug traffickers in Bolivia began to forge strong connections with the powerful cartels of Colombia and with the United States, the world’s biggest market for illegal drugs.

Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of coca, after Colombia and Peru.

Meanwhile, the former miners who migrated to the country’s coca-growing regions brought with them their labour organising traditions, which were heavily influenced by currents of Marxist thought in the 1950s and 1960s. This, combined with the local tradition of peasant struggle, gave rise to the creation of combative rural unions – and to a new leader, Morales.

Defending the cultivation of coca and its ageold medicinal and ritual uses, the rural associations resisted U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate the crop and replace it with legal alternatives.

Bolivia’s anti-drug legislation authorises the cultivation of only 12,000 hectares of coca for traditional consumption.

The main highway linking eastern and western Bolivia runs through the central Chapare region, which was the scenario of protests and roadblocks by coca farmers, in which clashes with the military and police led to dozens of deaths on both sides in the past 15 years.

When the coca farmers first attempted to win seats at the local government level, the National Electoral Court disqualified a number of the 10,000 signatures they had collected in order to register as a political party. So they instead decided to revive a dying party, the MAS.

Since then, the municipalities in the tropical region of Cochabamba have been ruled by Morales’ MAS, which in the last municipal elections won the largest number of seats in the country’s 327 local governments.

Morales was first elected to Congress in 1997, and narrowly lost the 2002 presidential elections to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. He also played a key role in the massive protests that brought down Sánchez de Lozada in 2003, and his successor, Carlos Mesa, last June.

Besides his rural support base, he has gained backing among the urban poor and lower middle-class sectors disillusioned with traditional politics.

Morales’ main rival is conservative former president (2001-2002) Jorge Quiroga. But neither Morales nor Quiroga are expected to capture the 50 percent of the ballots plus one vote needed to win the elections outright on Sunday.

The decision would then go to Congress, where alliances would have to be struck to choose among the two top vote-earners. The question is whether Bolivian democracy is flexible and mature enough to accept a leftist indigenous president for the first time ever.

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