[A-List] Morales Leading Bolivian Election

["Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Polls: Morales Leading Bolivian Election 
Sunday December 18, 2005 5:46 PM
By FIONA SMITH 
Associated Press Writer 

CATORCE DE SEPTIEMBRE, Bolivia (AP) - Socialist Evo Morales waved coca
branches as he headed to vote Sunday amid jubilant townsfolk who hoped to
see him become Bolivia's first Indian president and end a U.S.-backed
anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating their crops. 

Opinion polls gave Morales a slim edge over conservative former president
Jorge Quiroga, who vowed to stay tough on coca and keep Bolivia on a
free-market track despite anti-globalization protests by impoverished
Indians that have ousted two presidents since 2003. 

With six other candidates in the race and the nation bitterly divided over
economic policies, neither man was likely to win a majority of the vote.
That would give Bolivia's newly elected legislature the right to decide
between the top two finishers in mid-January. 

Morales, 46, held himself out as Washington's ``nightmare,'' promising to
reverse years of U.S.-backed efforts to wipe out coca fields that have
sometimes led to clashes with farmers and to jettison free-market ideas that
he blames for Bolivia's widespread poverty. 

Bolivia is the world's third-largest grower of coca leaf, which has
traditional, legal uses among the country's Indians but also is the raw
material for making the cocaine that flows out of South America to feed the
habits of drug users in the United States and elsewhere. 

``If (the U.S.) wants relations, welcome. But `no' to a relationship of
submission,'' Morales said after casting his ballot, talking with
journalists where piles of coca leaves were spread atop a Bolivian flag. 

The Aymara Indian street activist also referred to his status as a symbol
for many of Bolivia's long-downtrodden Indians, who are a majority in this
country of 8.5 million people. 

``I am the candidate of those despised in Bolivian history, the candidate of
the most disdained, discriminated against,'' he said after working through a
crowd of admirers - some of whom rushed forward to kiss him - before voting
at a decrepit basketball court in the village school. 

He compared the struggle of his Movement Toward Socialism party to those of
Indian leaders who fought Spanish conquerers as well as to independence hero
Simon Bolivar and socialist icon Che Guevara. But he also stressed the need
to make changes peacefully. 

``In this millennium, it's not a matter of raising arms to defeat
capitalism, so inhumane and savage ... ,'' he said. Rather, he said, he
would ``work democratically to change things, based on elections and on the
conscience of the people.'' 

Quiroga, meanwhile, urged voters not to accept vague promises by his rival. 

``Don't be fooled,'' Quiroga, 45, said as he closed his campaign Thursday in
the wealthy city of Santa Cruz, his base. ``With your support we are going
to show that the future of Bolivia is good and prosperous.'' 

Quiroga served as president in 2001-02 after then-President Hugo Banzer
became ill. He campaigned on a promise to sell Bolivia's vast natural gas
reserves at higher prices and to improve education, health care and roads,
power and other infrastructure. 

Some Bolivians argue that the gas fields should be taken over by the state. 

Voting was held under heavy police guard across the country. Hundreds of
international monitors, including a group from the Organization of American
States, made it one of the mostly closely watched elections in Bolivia's
history. 

The election also was deciding the vice president, all 27 Senate seats, 130
House seats and all nine governorships. 

Morales draws much of his support from Indians, many of whom feel
free-market policies of the past two decades have enriched the white elite
at the expense of the poor majority. Extreme poverty afflicts about half the
population and the unemployment rate is above 9 percent. 

A victory for Morales would give Bolivia a president sure to be at odds with
Washington. He counts Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez among
his friends, along with leftists in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay who have
won power at the ballot box this decade. ``If he governs by really carrying
out his agenda, which is quite a radical agenda, I think it's going to be
very difficult for him,'' said Michael Shifter, a Latin American analyst at
Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. 

``He has to figure out how to satisfy the demands of his radical base who
want a greater share of the national wealth and at the same time he's got to
make sure the country's economically viable.'' 

The winner will take office Jan. 22, succeeding caretaker President Eduardo
Rodriguez, a Supreme Court justice appointed by Congress on June 8, two days
after street protests ended the 18-month administration of Carlos Mesa. 

--- 

Associated Press writer Bill Cormier in La Paz contributed to this report.