by the El Reportero’s news services
Evo Morales
The national vote on Oct. 16 to pick 56 judicial officials for Bolivia’s top courts marked two firsts. It was the first time such a selection process was determined by direct popular vote anywhere in the world. It also appears to have delivered the first electoral defeat to President Evo Morales since he took office in 2006.
Preliminary results suggest calls by the opposition for voters to spoil their ballots or leave them blank have met with success: the opposition tried to turn the vote into a plebiscite on Morales, still discredited over the recent police crackdown on indigenous protesters [WR-11-39].
Yet while the result reflects discontent with Morales, it also suggests the limits of popular democracy, a key feature of the model of 21st century Socialism espoused by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez. It raises questions over the value of allowing the public to vote on such a technical issue, a problem which has cropped up both for Chávez and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa.
Bolivia: indigenous demands still unanswered
La Paz, Oct 21 (Prensa Latina) Bolivians await expectantly the government´s solutions over the demands of an indigenous march that has been claiming their natural resources to be respected for two
days now in the capital.
The march left the eastern city of Trinidad on August 15 to defend the biodiversity of the Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) despite that before demonstrators arrived in La Paz, President Evo Morales disclosed that the construction of the highway linking Cochabamba and Beni departments would be suspended.
The Plurinational Legislative Assembly inked an agreement stipulating that a previous referendum would be held with the participation of the real indigenous communities. After arriving in La Paz, the demonstrators were called to hold talks at the seat of the vice presidency, but they want to meet Morales in his office, noted TIPNIS leader, Fernando Vargas.
