Deciphering the Evo Code

In the media (Bolivian and foreign), in the social movements, in diplomatic circles, in corporate board rooms, the game has become the same one – trying to figure out what Evo Morales is really about and what he really plans for Bolivia. Here’s my current contribution to that newest of Bolivian parlor games – Deciphering the Evo Code.

Radical or Moderate?

At a superficial level, the debate since Morales landslide election last December has centered on the question, “How radical is he?” In the run up to his inauguration many reporters made hay about his quote (taken out of context) about being the US' “worst nightmare”. The Council on Foreign Relations in Washington used it as the title for my post-inauguration talk there in January (they meant Evo, not me).

On taking office, Morales suddenly seemed to take moderation pills. The US government’s representative at the inauguration told me the next day on the plane to the US that he had been surprised by the cordial hand offered by Morales and the new government. My Bolivian government sources told me the same thing about the US. Two weeks later George Bush was on the phone chatting up Morales (and according to one person privy to the chat, Bush was quite surprised to hear that Morales was a "socialist”).

Then on May 1 Morales issued his gas “nationalization” decree, sent Bolivian troops into oil fields controlled by foreign corporations, ramped up his rhetoric, and for a week seemed joined at the hip with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the man who likes to call President Bush (accurately, I would argue) “Mr. Dangerous.”

So what is it Evo, radical or moderate? Are these mood swings? Is this the slow revealing of true colors previously hidden for electoral and diplomatic purposes? Here is another take on it. Evo Morales is a politician and, in terms of political skills, he is pretty good at the game, for now at least.

Nationalization Light

First, let’s have a look at that gas decree. In the next couple of days The Democracy Center will present a full analysis, offered up by one of our able gas researchers, Gretchen Gordon. Meanwhile, the fact remains that the decree itself is a far less radical step than what the foreign press has made it out to be (ie. a full-scale government takeover of foreign oil interests in the country. That astute student of global economics, Enrique the taxi driver in my neighborhood, summed it up pretty well. “It isn’t nationalization. If it were nationalization the foreign companies would have been tossed out of the country.”

That’s right Enrique. You want to know what nationalization looks like, look at the 2000 Cochabamba water revolt. Bechtel comes; Bechtel gets kicked out. No lingering relations, no prolonged negotiation, no compensation. The water and the facilities involved return to public hands (and Bechtel is forced to back away from its outrageous demand for a $50 million goodbye kiss). That is what nationalization looks like.

Morales decree is limited to five companies that were all created originally with Bolivian public funds and later sold off a majority controlling interest to foreign corporations, at bargain prices and terms that were indefensible, then and now. What Morales has proposed is not to takeover the companies, but through buy-backs, negotiation and other arrangements, to bump up the Bolivian government’s shares until the government has a 51% controlling interest. Some key parts of Morales’ decree are also just temporary, pending the six-month period in which the government and the companies are supposed to renegotiate the terms of the deal.

If Morales had applied the same scheme to Bechtel, it would still be here collecting fees from water users, just in partnership with the government.

Politically, however, it is an astute move. Bolivians who don’t follow the detail too close saw Morales as a strong President, standing up to foreign oil interests and keeping a campaign pledge. For Bolivians who do follow the details, Morales looks sufficiently cautious. Enrique says he thinks that the six months of negotiations is smart, “We don’t want all of the foreign oil companies suing us.” For Morales critics on the left, who now have the challenge of explaining the decree’s details and how it doesn’t really do what people think, their voices will be marginalized. I can hear it now, “Oh those people will never be satisfied.”

Changing Political Structures vs. Meeting Basic Needs

I think that the other real political challenge ahead for Morales is this one – how to balance the investment of his political capital on structural political change vs. meeting people's immediate needs. Political and social movement leaders are very focused on the July 2 elections for Constituent Assembly, the body that will “rewrite Bolivia’s constitution”. Here as well the watering down is easy to spot. Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, before he became a candidate, used to talk and write at length about an assembly elected by the people, not political parties.

Nevertheless, under the convening legislation backed by MAS, it is the political parties that will dominate the July 2 elections. MAS’ efforts to thwart possible competition from the social movements was clear. Political parties qualified for the July 2 ballot automatically. Citizen groups needed to collect 15,000 voter signatures in a few weeks, in a process that involved collecting thumbprints and identify card numbers for each voter. The main potential social movement competitors failed to make the ballot, including an effort by the leaders of the water revolt in Cochabamba.

Many, both here and abroad, fear that the Assembly could turn into, instead of a citizen-led process to remake the political structure, a MAS-dominated effort to solidify political power through structural changes in the political process. That, according to one US official I spoke with, has been enough to send more and more upper class Bolivians into the US Embassy in search of visas and in preparation for a potential exodus.

I think, for Morales and MAS, the danger of an exodus is far less real than the danger of focusing too much on changing political structures and too little on changing what matters to people’s daily lives. The risk Morales faces is the echo chamber of politics. To be sure, the people around him on a daily basis care a good deal about how the rules of the political game get rewritten. It is the game they play everyday and have to keep winning to hold power. That is true in any nation.

However, for people like Enrique the taxi driver, Lourdes who owns the store around the corner, and most of the Bolivians I deal with in regular life every day, what really matters is not politics but more basic things like: Do we have water? Is my kid’s school getting any better? What about the long lines at the public health hospital? Are there going to be more jobs?

The game of politics is seductive. It has to be a heady thing to issue a decree and then be in the foreign press non-stop for a week, and to rush off to Europe and duel with European heads of state (and a few Latin American neighbors as well). It is easy to fall into the planning and plotting of restructuring political power.

But soon enough the people will ask about water and health care and their kids’ schools, and the new government had better be able to show that it is committed and able to deliver those goods, as well as foreign attention and executive decrees.