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<span class="post_date" title="2016-02-25">February 25, 2016</span>
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/25/the-horizon-of-evo-morales-long-decade-in-power-implications-of-bolivias-referendum-results/"
rel="bookmark">The Horizon of Evo Morales’ Long Decade in Power:
Implications of Bolivia’s Referendum Results</a></h1>
<p class="post_meta"> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/benjamin-dangl/"
rel="nofollow">Benjamin Dangl</a></span> </p>
<b><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/25/the-horizon-of-evo-morales-long-decade-in-power-implications-of-bolivias-referendum-results/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/25/the-horizon-of-evo-morales-long-decade-in-power-implications-of-bolivias-referendum-results/</a></small></small></small></small></b><br>
<div class="post_content" itemprop="articleBody">
<p>Bolivian President Evo Morales lost the referendum last Sunday
that could have given him the ability to run for re-election in
2019. The margin was small, but the implications are huge:
Bolivia’s longest standing and most popular president finally
has an end date for his time in power, on January 22, 2020.</p>
<p>The lead up to the election was brutal, with an array of
corruption scandals and conflicts, the most tragic of which was
a protest last Wednesday against the opposition-controlled
mayor’s office that resulted in a fire leading to six deaths.
This disaster, the key details of which are still unclear, <a
href="https://woborders.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/deadly-el-alto-protest-casts-shadow-on-bolivian-referendum/">cast
a shadow</a> over the referendum. But the corruption scandals,
which had besieged pro-Morales indigenous and <em>campesino</em>
organizations as well as the presidency, had already made their
imprint on national public opinion. Just last March, the
Movement Toward Socialism, (MAS, Morales’ political party) <a
href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/5260-bolivias-contested-process-of-change-views-from-a-regional-election">lost
key regional elections</a> in several departments, in part due
to the fallout from the corruption charges.</p>
<p>Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who rose to
prominence as a union leader among coca farmers and as a
dissident congressman, has won three general elections,
including a <a
href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/5080-why-evo-morales-will-likely-win-upcoming-elections-in-bolivia">2014
victory</a> with over 60% of the vote, and is now in his tenth
year in power. Over this decade, he has presided over a host of
historic policies and measures, including rewriting the
constitution in a constituent assembly, extending government
control over the country’s lucrative natural gas reserves, and
expanding access to education, <a
href="https://nacla.org/news/bolivia-prescribes-solidarity-health-care-reform-under-evo-morales">healthcare</a>,
and the political process to previously marginalized sectors of
society. Economic growth has remained solid through much of his
time in power, thanks to his government’s economic policies and
the boom in oil and gas prices. As a result, under Morales,
poverty rates have dropped dramatically for citizens in South
America’s poorest country.</p>
<p>But this period hasn’t been without its pitfalls, and critics
on the left and the right have pointed out a variety of problems
surrounding the MAS government. Critics claimed the 2009
constitution, presided over by the MAS government, failed to
bring forward necessary land reform. Morales touts the rights of
nature and Mother Earth, but <a
href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4816-the-politics-of-pachamama-natural-resource-extraction-vs-indigenous-rights-and-the-environment-in-latin-america">leads
an extractive-based economy</a> that has wreaked havoc in the
countryside, <a
href="https://nacla.org/blog/2015/06/15/morales-greenlights-tipnis-road-oil-and-gas-extraction-bolivia%E2%80%99s-national-parks">extended
extractive industries</a> into national parks, and displaced
some of the same rural communities his policies aim to support.
Denouncements of corruption scandals, co-optation and repression
of various social and indigenous movements, authoritarian
tendencies against political opponents and critical media have
followed his presidency for years. At the same time, the
opposition has been fragmented, lacking unity while Morales and
the MAS consistently win major elections and reforms supported
at the ballot box.</p>
<p>The referendum which took place on Sunday brought many of these
issues to the forefront, at times making the vote less about the
nature of democracy in Bolivia, and more about Morales himself.
The president said he would win the referendum in a landslide,
but in the end, the Yes vote supporting his hopes for
re-election in 2019 lost by roughly 2%.</p>
<p>The implications of the referendum results <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Evo-Morales-Wont-Run-in-2019-But-MAS-Will-Continue-Fighting-20160221-0027.html">are
varied</a>. First is the issue of succession. Morales said
today that it is too early to speak of who might fill his shoes
on the MAS ticket. Regardless of who takes on that role, the MAS
is very likely to have a prominent presence in Bolivia’s
political sphere for decades to come. The opposition is still
very divided and without key leaders. The No vote in the
referendum had the impact of uniting a wide array of MAS
opponents that don’t just go under the umbrella of the Bolivian
right; disenchanted leftists, people simply tired of Morales or
believing that a change in the presidency is good for democracy,
anarchists, indigenous dissidents, and others allied with the
neoliberals and conservatives to vote No. The referendum victory
they brought about doesn’t necessary signal a shift to the right
in Bolivia. Indeed, it simply further opens up the playing field
to the country’s variety of political currents.</p>
<p>The vote does however point to a significant new chapter in
Bolivia’s recent political trajectory. Morales was first elected
in 2005 on the back of a series of popular uprisings that
challenged neoliberalism and toppled establishment politicians.
The social movements of the era that took a stand against
corporate globalization and the Bolivian oligarchy transformed
the country’s political landscape, opening up spaces for change
that Morales filled; the indigenous president, no stranger to
protests and road blockades himself, used his relationship with
the country’s dynamic social movements to push forward
institutional and societal changes that otherwise would have
been impossible.</p>
<p>But the Bolivian left and its vibrant social and indigenous
movements were always bigger than the MAS, and Sunday’s
referendum results underline this. The future of the country
beyond January of 2020 will not have a Morales presidency in it,
but it will still be in the hands of the Bolivian people who,
over the last decade and a half, kicked out multinational
corporations, ousted neoliberal tyrants, faced down US
imperialism, and expanded the country’s – and the world’s –
imagination about what is politically possible, not just via the
ballot box, but through protests, barricades, and social
movements.</p>
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<p class="author_description"> <i><strong>Benjamin Dangl</strong>
has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America, covering
social movements and politics in the region for over a decade.
He is the author of the books <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Dynamite-Social-Movements-America/dp/1849350159">Dancing
with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America</a>,
and <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Price-Fire-Resource-Movements-Bolivia/dp/190485933X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422481340&sr=1-1&keywords=price+of+fire&pebp=1422481360338&peasin=190485933X">The
Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia</a>.
Dangl is currently a doctoral candidate in Latin American
History at McGill University, and edits UpsideDownWorld.org, a
website on activism and politics in Latin America, and
TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events.
Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/bendangl">https://twitter.com/bendangl</a> Email:
BenDangl(at)gmail(dot)com</i> </p>
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