Andean Information Network

On August 16, after 19 days of blockades and hunger strikes in urban Potosí and surrounding areas, Potosí civic leaders and MAS officials reached an agreement to end protests.  After protest leaders and Bolivian government officials met in Sucre, the Morales administration agreed to begin work on the demonstrators’ six demands.[i] While this agreement marks [...]

Andres Schipani’s article, “Jessica Anne Jordan Burton: beauty queen defies cartel beasts in Bolivia’s war on cocaine,” presents an inaccurate, hyperbolic, and sexist account, which projects narrow-minded generalizations and grossly distorts the current reality of Bolivian drug policy.  Unfortunately, this erroneous portrayal has been widely reprinted and quoted in the English-speaking press.
Inaccurate or incomplete information [...]

Yesterday, former Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) Waldo Albarracín told the press that the deaths of David Callisaya Mamani (16) and Fidel Mario Hernan Jiménez (19) last week in Caranavi should make President Morales ineligible to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for which he was recently nominated.  It’s a valid argument that nevertheless presents [...]

The results of April 4 departmental and municipal elections largely reflect previous trends in voter choices. Initial estimates indicate that the official MAS party won five out of nine governor posts: Cochabamba, La Paz, Chuquisaca, Potosi and Oruro. They may have also prevailed in Pando, although that departmental race remains too close to call before [...]

In September 2008 lowland elites led sustained protests against the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, demanding autonomy for their departments.  Yet, Morales’ MAS government never opposed grassroots autonomy initiatives. In fact, the administration held a 2006 referendum allowing lowland departments to opt for autonomy to be defined in the new Constitution. Ironically, opposition efforts to block [...]

On December 6, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous President, easily won reelection with 64% of the vote to 26% for the right-wing candidate Manfred Reyes Villa. During his first term in office the international press and opinion makers hyped a “deep” divide between Bolivia’s eastern lowland regions and the western Andean highlands. For example, an [...]

Evo Morales is the most popular President Bolivia has ever had. Last month he won re-election with 64% of the vote in spite of the fact that he is often at loggerheads with Bolivia’s upper classes that control the country’s print and television media.
Evo Morales and representatives of the U.S. government have a history of [...]

Alternative indigenous candidates polled relatively poorly.  Victor Hugo Cardenas received the highest percentage in the group (4.5%), leaving him in fifth place, Rene Joaquino (3.5%). Both came in several percentage points behind the category, “Don’t know; didn’t respond.”  It will be interesting to see how numbers change as the campaign season progresses.

Department
% Votes for Morales
Second [...]

Candidates and Potential Candidates

Victor Hugo Cárdenas, The People (Gente): Vice President during the first Sánchez de Lozada term, Cárdenas intends to contribute to a unified opposition bloc and promote “national reunification.”[ii] Of Aymara heritage, he faces harsh criticism among indigenous populations for his perceived “sell-out” to neoliberal policies. It is interesting to note that Cárdenas, [...]

The Pivotal Indigenous Vote The candidates’ capacity to bridge deep regional and ethnic divides will also present an interesting campaign challenge. Recent elections and referenda results demonstrate the need for opposition contenders to tap into voter demographics outside of the urban, upper-middle class mestizo populations, which have historically represented conservative opposition groups’ core support. The urban [...]