Bolivia: A Presidential Race with a Foregone Conclusion

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia: A Presidential Race with a Foregone Conclusion

Upside Down World
September 15, 2009

President Evo Morales and Vice President Álvaro García are set to handily win the Dec. 6 elections in Bolivia, against a fragmented opposition.
In a Gallup International poll published early this month, more than 57 percent of respondents said they would vote for the left-wing Morales, compared to less than 10 percent each for the two most popular right-leaning candidates, Samuel Doria Medina of the National Unity Front (FUN) and former Cochabamba governor Manfred Reyes Villa of the New Republican Force (NFR).

A total of eight presidential candidates registered last week to run for the 2010-2015 period.

A second term for Morales, who took office in January 2006 after winning 53.7 percent of the vote, would give the Movement to Socialism (MAS) a chance to consolidate what it has called the "re-founding" of the Bolivian state on the basis of greater participation by indigenous people and a strengthening of their rights.

Indigenous people in Bolivia, South America's poorest country, make up a majority of the population - approximately 60 percent of a total of 9.3 million people - but have long suffered discrimination. They were not allowed to vote until 1952, and Morales is the country's first-ever indigenous president.

~snip~
Since February, Bolivia has a new constitution, one of whose central aims is to bolster the rights of indigenous people. For example, native communities will decide how to manage local development and administer local natural resources. In addition, the document designates the Bolivian state as "pluri-national", in recognition of the country's 36 native peoples, as well as blacks.

The constitution also stipulates that all Bolivians have the right to water, food, education, health care, retirement pensions, housing, electricity, telecommunications and other basic services, which the state has the obligation to ensure access to in an efficient, equitable manner.

Furthermore, the constitution bans the privatisation of water and sewage services, and says the country's natural resources are the property of the Bolivian people and are to be administered by the state, "in the collective interest."

It also strengthens women's rights, guaranteeing equal pay for men and women with the same job, and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/bolivia/6334.html

[EFerrari]

1. I didn't realize it was that time again. Boy these last few years

have flown by.

[BolivarianHero]

2. Early election...

It was supposed to take place next year, but there was some sort of deal worked out to hold early elections.

Unless the polling firms have fixed their methodologies since last election, Morales will win huge if he's polling well into the 50s. Last time he barely polled 40 but won much bigger than that.

I have a feeling impoverished rural places and indigenous areas are still fairly hard to poll and turnout models are hard to predict for those regions.