Helicopters, Toyotas, and Politics

The front page of today's Los Tiempos leads with an article about plans by Cochabamba's governor, Manfred Reyes Villa, to buy a million dollar helicopter. Staff to Reyes Villa declare in the article that the helicopter would be used "exclusively for attention to emergencies", citing as an example the region's recent flooding. The helicopter that the Governor would purchase would have a capacity of four passengers.

Normally, this might be a non-story [I will leave it to others to debate the relative merits of the Governor having a helicopter at his disposal to fly to the outer regions of the large Cochabamba department]. The reason it is a story is because it comes as part of a growing political battle between President Morales and Governor Reyes Villa – now the two leading politicians in Bolivia – over the latter's spending of public dollars.

Yesterday the issue was Toyotas, a squabble carried out in a pair of large competing ads in the Sunday paper. In one ad the Morales government challenged Reyes Villa for buying 26 new vehicles for official business, a happy event for the local Toyota distributor. The ad listed each of the vehicles and their purchase price one by one. For families who struggle just to pay the 1.50 Boliviano (20 cent) local bus fare, thousands of dollars paid out for a shiny new car at taxpayer expense is likely to strike a resentful chord (which, of course, is Morales' intention).

Someone obviously tipped off Reyes Villa that the ad was coming and so the Governor responded with an ad of his own defending the new cars, essentially arguing that the old ones needed to be replaced. Again, I will leave it to others to argue the relative merits of purchasing new cars. I will however, disclose for the record that the last car I owned (in 1998) was a beloved 1992 Toyota Corolla named Emmalina (and was the color of poop).

I would also add here that it would be interesting to know how much taxpayers paid for both the ads, and which politician got the better deal from the happy editors at Los Tiempos.

The Strategy Behind the Scenes

In any event, what is most interesting about this is that Morales is now doing politically to Reyes Villa what Reyes Villa tried to do to Morales last December when he joined the Santa Cruz bandwagon for regional autonomy – picking at the other's political caricature and weakness.

What is the political caricature that picks at Morales' weak spot – Evo the Wannabe Despot. He wants to ram through a new constitution without real debate. He wants to be Hugo Chavez in a wool sweater. He really wants to abolish both an independent judiciary and independent press. He wants Bolivia to be Cuba! That's the rap, and like all raps of the sort it is wildly overblown and at the same time has enough grains of truth buried in it to get some political traction.

The parallel rap on Reyes Villa (one around long before Evo sang it) is simpler – Manfred the Corrupt. Go back to the Goni attack campaign against Reyes Villa in 2002, engineered by U.S. political consultants and chronicled well in the Rachel Boynton's U.S. film Our Brand is Crisis. "How did he get all those houses in Bolivia and Miami?" they asked. Here in Cochabamba the locals say, "Okay, he steals but at least he gets the job done too." His old political party, NFR, got nicknamed Nueva Forma de Robar (New Way to Steal). Morales is counting on the caricature sticking and he is dealing in a strategy essential to warfare, be it political or battlefield – take the fight to where you have the high ground and your opponent has to play defense.

Another Use for that Helicopter

Whatever the merits of a new helicopter and fleet of new vehicles, all this does keep with one Reyes Villa truism, he does like to spend the public's money on flashy toys. Earlier this year he invested $80,000 of taxpayer funds to add rotating colored lights to illuminate the giant Jesus statue here. Bathed in alternating purple, yellow, blue and green (I like the purple best) Cochabamba can now proudly claim not only the tallest Jesus on Earth, but arguably the most psychedelic as well.

Citizens here have demanded that Reyes Villa open the state's books to public scrutiny and have been rebuffed.

Another Reyes Villa public work (as Cochabamba Mayor) is the high dangling tram that sweeps people up and down the hill to visit that Jesus. Ironically, the same morning paper that offers up the helicopter story also tells of an incident yesterday involving the tram. Yesterday screaming passengers were trapped dangling in mid-flight for half an hour when the tram stopped working suddenly. Apparently the system is suffering maintenance problems (when you build things you also have to keep in mind the cost of upkeep).

It may be that one of the earliest uses of Reyes Villa's chopper will be to rescue passengers from his Tram to Jesus. I can't wait to see the Morales Administration's ad when that happens.