Bolivia Going Strong

Bolivia is riding an economic high partly based on greater state control of natural resources and an unusually long period of political stability – not what critics expected when Evo Morales, coca farmer, unionist and the country’s first indigenous president, was elected in 2005.

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In 2002, when Morales made his first bid for president, the US ambassador warned Bolivians against electing a man who rose to national prominence as the leader of the country’s largest coca farmers’ union.

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Now Morales seems poised to win a resounding election victory – his third – that will take his presidency through 2020 and make him the longest-serving leader in Bolivian history.

Polls show him at 59 points, 41 points ahead of his closest competitor.

  Guardian

Note to American Pols: See what happens when you do good things for your country?

“Morales certainly disappointed conservative critics abroad and at home who claimed his tenure would lead to economic collapse, social chaos, unbridled cocaine production, violence and abandonment by the international community,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of policy analyst gro

They didn’t really believe that. They were disappointed because he won and the same wretched elite-enriching plan that the Western world has forced on so many other countries was not able to be implemented.

Javier Pari, who works in a La Paz bank, says Morales will win the election not because of unreserved endorsement of his government, but because the opposition has failed to generate excitement.

Sure. That’s it.

It won't be long before we are forced to begin serious destabilizing acivity in Bolivia.  Surely they have terrorists we need to bomb?