La Paz, Bolivia – Evo Morales, the highland Indian Socialist who will become Bolivia’s president next month, took a big step toward smoothing his government’s path by holding a cordial and collaborative meeting with leaders of the autonomy-minded prosperous eastern province of Santa Cruz, which voted overwhelmingly against him in this month’s elections.
Though the campaign leading up to the Dec. 18 elections that Morales won in a landslide saw the Aymara populist at times criticize the Santa Cruz business chiefs as “oligarchs” and allies of the U.S. “empire,” the encounter in the provincial capital Tuesday served to narrow differences and create a climate of cooperation.
Morales, who was supported by only 30 percent of Santa Cruz voters in the election – which he won overall with 54 percent of the vote – was met at the airport in the provincial capital by scores of activists from his Movement Toward Socialism party.
The president-elect spent more than an hour with representatives of the Santa Cruz civic committee, an entity dominated by local magnates who have led the push for provincial autonomy.
Many of those same business leaders, who for the most part are European-descended or mestizo, had expressed reservations about a Morales presidency, saying the nation’s relatively well-off east, home to huge reserves of natural gas, could be “exploited” by a government dedicated to the country’s Indian majority.
The encounter in Santa Cruz city ended with a commitment from both Morales and the civic committee to work together for the good of Bolivia.
The future president said he backs the Santa Cruz-led effort to give the Andean nation’s nine provinces more control over their own affairs, an initiative that has already borne fruit in the form of then-head of state Carlos Mesa’s decision early this year to replace La Paz-appointed prefects with elected provincial governors.
Those first-ever gubernatorial contests were decided on Dec. 18, and despite Morales’ resounding victory in the presidential race, his party picked up only two governorships, with the other seven going to right-of-center parties. The new president will also have to contend with a national referendum on provincial autonomy, set for July 2006.
Morales took the opportunity of Tuesday’s meeting to deny that he was behind the recent move by provisional President Eduardo Rodriguez to suspend a tender for bids from mining companies to exploit Santa Cruz’s big iron deposit at Mutun, near the Brazilian border.
“It’s urgent, necessary for regional development and for the development of the Bolivian people,” he said of the project, which has attracted interest from a number of foreign investors.
He went on to promise that as president, he will reach an agreement on the Mutun concession, though Morales stressed that the contracts must obey “principles of balance.”
“That the state, the regions and Bolivia benefit, but the investors also have a right to recoup their investment and have their profit,” the president-elect said, summarizing the approach he plans to take in reasserting government control over the country’s natural resources.
Morales, who was seen smiling inside his vehicle as he left the meeting, offered the Santa Cruz civic committee the chance to nominate one or two delegates for his transition team.
Acknowledging that he lacks “professional training,” the former llama herder and coca grower also asked the committee members – most of them business-owners or professionals – to complement with their expertise what he called his own social consciousness.
“Evo has no ambition, neither economic nor for political power. Evo will command Bolivia, but while obeying the people – the civic committee and likewise all the country’s institutions,” said Morales, who takes office Jan. 22.
The president-elect adopted a similar conciliatory tone in comments earlier Tuesday to the Santa Cruz chapter of Bolivia’s banking association, assuring the bank executives he had no plans to impose any kind of freeze or restrictions on accounts.
Speaking for the Santa Cruz civic committee, chairman German Antelo praised Morales for his “spirit of dialogue and seeking accord,” and said the Indian’s administration will be the first in Bolivian history that will find itself compelled to exercise power in a more democratic and participatory manner.
The new president, Antelo said, will have to coordinate with the elected provincial governors and “that’s going to lead to a deepening of democracy.”
Throughout the course of 2005, the Santa Cruz leaders have been among the most vocal critics of Morales, who returned the favor by denouncing the business barons as oligarchs acting in the interests of the United States.
