The Bolivian Elections I: Five Things to Understand About the Process

Dear Readers:

Welcome to the start of the Democracy Center’s Blog coverage of the December 6th Bolivian Presidential and Congressional election!

In the weeks ahead we will be publishing a series of posts looking at various aspects of the December vote and in many different forms, including analyses of the issues, video interviews with candidates running with the major parties, views from social movement leaders, and Election Day coverage in real time from around Bolivia.

So we begin with Part I: Five Things to Understand About the Process. We will follow-up shortly with a look at the candidates.

This post was co-written with the Democracy Center’s newest team member, our intern Jessica Aguirre.

Jim Shultz


Bolivia's Elections: Five Things to Understand About the Process

Slowly the streets of Bolivia are filling with motorcades, political rallies, handed-out flyers, and the other familiar trappings of Bolivian elections. From afar readers try to take stock of what the political coca leaves have to say about the December 6th vote. Behind that vote are key things about the Bolivian election process that are useful to understand.

1. Electing a President: What does it take to win?

Bolivian presidential votes, before Evo Morales’s huge win in 2005, traditionally ended with two or three candidates in a close tie with voter support just above 20%. This, in turn, begat a series of ‘negotiated presidencies’ in which rival parties put together power sharing coalitions primarily aimed at dividing the spoils (jobs, corruption, etc.) of power.

Morales avoided such a governing coalition in December 2005 by winning a straight majority of the vote (53%) outright. He may well repeat that achievement again this December. But if he doesn’t, then Bolivian presidential selection will get tossed into the rules laid out by the new constitution.

In the new constitution, the President of Bolivia can be elected in one of three ways. The simplest is to win 50% of the vote plus one. Absent any candidate doing that, the second option kicks in, a runoff vote between the two top-finishing candidates.

However, for this election only, under a special Ley Transitoria Electoral there is a third option and one that could easily determine the outcome in December. If the top finishing candidate does not win a majority of the votes, but does finish more than 10% ahead of the second place candidate, he (all the leading candidates are men) becomes President without a runoff. This is why there was an incentive for opposition parties to form a united front, an objective it was never really able to complete. The most recent polling shows Morales with 47% of the vote, but running 30% ahead of his nearest opponent, former Cochabamba Governor Manfred Reyes Villa.

If this holds, Morales will be a big winner, majority or not, on December 6th.

2. Is Evo Running for Re-election?

Another fundamental question is this: Constitutionally, is President Evo Morales running for the last five-year term he will be allowed to serve, or will he be eligible to run once again in 2014, potentially extending his Presidency for as long as 14 years? This is a very charged political question in Bolivia, where opposition leaders have repeatedly warned that Morales has his sights on a never-ending Presidency, in the mold of Castro in Cuba. Throughout Latin America concerns about stay-put Presidents have led to a series of one-term limits (with ex-presidents allowed to seek office again after one-term out).

This was always the case in Bolivia as well, and Presidential re-election was a topic of heated debate during the process of writing and approving the constitution. MAS and Morales originally backed unlimited chances to run for re-election, and then compromised that down to one chance.

But, since Morales was first elected before the new Constitution was passed, technically this first term does not officially count as one of the two continuous terms allowed. Therefore, he could legally seek another re-election in 2014 (if he is elected in December). It was precisely this concern that led Morales, during the Constitutional debates, to publicly promise that he will not seek re-election in 2014. But Morales supporters and opponents alike know that promises like these can become pretty flexible when faced with actually leaving office.

3. That Confusing Congressional Election System

It is not only the Bolivian Presidency that is up for a vote in December, but the newly constituted Bolivian Congress as well. Important changes made in the constitution have opened up real possibilities for change in the composition of the Congress.

Bolivia’s Congress (officially known now as the Plurinational Legislative Assembly), in typical form is composed of two chambers, the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Departmental Representatives (i.e. House of Representatives and Senate).

The more populous Chamber of Deputies, with 130 seats, will have members elected in three different ways. The “Uninominal” members, 68 of them, are elected directly by the voters in specific geographic districts. The 54 “Plurinominal” seats are divided amongst the political parties according to the vote each party gets in the elections and those members are appointed by their parties. The new constitution adds a third twist, the election of 8 additional deputies who will represent specific indigenous areas.

The Chamber of Departmental Representatives (or Senate) is composed of four elected members from each of the nine departments, the same number regardless of population. These four seats are also divided amongst the parties, based on the share of the vote won by each.

MAS and Morales have been clear about their aim to win two-thirds control of the Congress. But the formula still cuts to MAS’ disadvantage, because of the over-representation of the smaller departments and the guarantee of seats to the losing opposition.

4. Polling in Bolivia: A Tricky Business

Who is actually ahead in the electoral race? Many Evo supporters are confident that the election is tied up, and they have ground to be optimistic. With recent polls showing Evo Morales with 47 percent popularity versus Manfred Reyes Villa’s 16 percent and Samuel Doria Medina’s 12 percent, there is good reason to believe they are right.

Nevertheless, polling in Bolivia is a tricky business and notoriously inaccurate. And these inaccuracies tend to actually translate into Morales’ vote being undercounted by polls. The reason why is simple. The Bolivian electorate is significantly divided between urban voters and rural. While Morales might get 50% in cities like Cochabamba, his support dips much lower in opposition hotbeds such as Santa Cruz. Yet when one travels beyond the cities you can find Morales backing that tops 80%. And most Bolivian polls focus on the cities and not the rural areas. Few polltakers will be found tromping about poor rural provinces such as Tapacari, notepad in hand. Yet in some of these areas MAS election propaganda often provides the brightest splash of color around.

5. Voting by Fingerprint

Lastly, one of the most important run-ups to the election, the process of registering voters, has been marked by the application of a new technology – voting by fingerprint or “Biometric Registry” as it is called here. Bolivians have been standing in-line for months to take their turn to press their digits into the system. Despite complaints about the wait, and warnings by opposition figures that MAS planned to use the system to engineer Election Day fraud, the registration process seems to have gone smoothly. National election officials report that more than 4.1 million voters registered under the new system as of early October.

This is also the first year that Bolivians abroad will be able to participate in the elections, and registration was carried out until mid-October in Argentina, Spain, the United States, and Brazil (the four countries that have the highest percentages of Bolivian migrants). Registration efforts abroad have been less successful however, owing to the difficulties of organizing registration centers and fear by many undocumented immigrants that they might expose themselves to local authorities.

Next Up: The Presidential Candidates

Bolivia’s Dilemma: Development Confronts the Legacy of Extraction

Readers:

From time to time we like to draw your attention to solid pieces written about Bolivia by some of our friends and colleagues. The new article by Linda Farthing on Bolivia's environmental challenges is an important read.

For those of you who don't know Linda, she has lived in Bolivia for many years and is co-author, with Ben Kohl, of one of the better recent books on Bolivia, Impasse in Bolivia. Her article below was also published in one of the best publications around for Latin American coverage, the NACLA reporter.

We are pleased to bring you this article and we thank both Linda and NACLA for granting their permission to let us post a link to it here.

Jim Shultz



Bolivia’s Dilemma: Development Confronts the Legacy of Extraction

by Linda Farthing

As with so much else in South America’s landlocked and impoverished heartland, Bolivia’s natural environment excels in superlatives: It is home to the world’s largest salt flat (Salar de Uyuni in the southwest); the world’s highest navigable lake (Titicaca, straddling the border with Peru); and the second-largest high mountain plateau (the altiplano), after that of Tibet. The result is an often breathtaking landscape of magnificent snow-covered mountains surrounding windswept plateaus and lakes of an almost unimaginable deep blue, high valleys unfolding eastward into dense, vast jungles to the north, and open savannas to the south.

Less fortunately for both Bolivia’s environment and its people, the exploitation of the country’s considerable natural resources has also been nearly unparalleled: The country was once home to the Spanish colony’s richest silver and gold mine (Potosí); boasted one of the world’s richest tin mines (Siglo XX); and today has two of the world’s largest silver mines (San Cristóbal and San Bartolomé), an estimated half of world’s lithium reserves (Salar de Uyuni), the future largest iron ore mine (Mutún), and the second-largest proven gas reserves in South America (after Venezuela’s). It comes as no surprise that Bolivia’s history and environment have been dominated by relentless extraction.

Even since the 2006 election of indigenous president Evo Morales and his progressive government, the social pressure to satisfy the country’s immediate economic needs through extractive industries that destroy the natural environment—primarily natural gas, mining, and forestry—remains as strong as ever. Moreover, the government confronts a terrible legacy of ecological degradation. For despite a relatively low population density, about a quarter of the national territory, or 60 million acres, is environmentally degraded, with almost 17 million acres under threat, according to the Environmental Defense League (Lidema), Bolivia’s principal environmental coalition.1

Read the full article here.

The Democracy Center Named as One of the Top Ten for Joining the Internet and Activism

On Friday, at a ceremony in Paris, the Democracy Center will be named by Politics Online as one of the Top Ten Groups in the World Changing the Internet and Politics. Our company in that top ten includes Google, a prominent Middle East human rights organization and others. The award to the Democracy Center is based on more than a decade of work pioneering the use of the Internet for social justice activism, including the landmark global campaign that forced the Bechtel Corporation to drop its $50 million lawsuit against the people of Bolivia following the Cochabamba Water Revolt.

Due to the stellar excuse that this week also marks two of my children's birthdays, I am not able to travel to Paris to accept the award on behalf of the Democracy Center, but in my place we sent something much better – a wonderful new three-minute video chronicling the Democracy Center's Internet activism since 1997. Have a look at the video above, or at the link here!

A Latin American Presidents Summit Comes to Cochabamba

Readers:

Last weekend the normally quiet city of Cochabamba was transformed into ground zero for a Latin American Presidents Summit. Seven heads of state were on hand, as well as scores of diplomats and hundreds of representatives from social organizations across the Americas, for a meeting of Latin America's left – ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance for the People).

The summit included Presidential declarations in favor or a new regional currency to compete with the dollar, a parallel social movements summit, and a Saturday afternoon rally that packed the Cochabamba soccer stadium and was one part Presidents 'report-back' and one part political rally for Bolivian President Evo Morales, who is up for re-election in December.

Our report on the ALBA summit, a collaborative effort of the Democracy Center team, includes a video which you can view by clicking on the image above or at the link here, the Blog article below, and a slide show which you can see here.

Jim Shultz

A Latin American Presidents Summit Comes to Cochabamba

Last weekend's summit drew a host of famous names from among Latin America's left of center Presidents – Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega, and Rafael Correa from Ecuador. The Presidential summit occurred in conjunction with a meeting of social organizations that gathered to collaborate on the development of ALBA-sponsored "people's trade agreements" that run counter to the form of U.S. style "free trade" agreements. Discussions ranged from a new currency to climate change.

What is ALBA?

Originally founded in December 2004 by the governments of Venezuela and Cuba, the ALBA initiative for Latin American collaboration has positioned itself as an alternative to U.S. led free trade agreements in the region, or as some supporters would state it – 'a socialist response to the spread of capitalism.' The agreement has since expanded to include Ecuador, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Honduras, Antigua and Barbuda and Nicaragua.

ALBA supporters note a series of differences between its vision of trade versus U.S.-led trade agreements in the region, but most important is that these regional agreements should be based on mutual support instead of simple profit-seeking and competition. This includes, for example, Cuba's decision to send teams of doctors to Bolivia to provide free eye surgery and Venezuela's efforts to increase its purchases of Bolivian textiles, which suffered from Washington's repeal last year of trade preferences for those products.

The Hot Topics in Cochabamba

Last weekend’s summit, the 7th annual meeting of Alba countries, was full of speeches declaring the ideological aims of the alliance, but it also took up some significant concrete matters as well. They included:

Creation of a New Regional Currency: Seeking to compete against the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the primary currency for international exchange in the region, the Presidents declared their intent to create a new one, the Sucre. The new currency is not aimed at replacing national monies, but to create an alternative to the U.S. dollar. Venezuelan President Chavez proclaimed the aim was "liberating ourselves from the dictatorship of the dollar." However, how soon that currency that will actually appear and how broadly it will be accepted remains a serious question.

Creation of New International Public Enterprises: The countries agreed to create five “super-national” businesses that will aim to challenge the dominance of trans-national corporations in areas such as the exploitation of natural resources. One will focus on facilitating import and export among member countries and the others will include an aluminum company, an iron and steel company, a mining company, and a mining exploration firm.

Creation of Regional Media: Similarly, the Presidents set forth a plan to establish a set of regional media enterprises, in television and radio, to offer news coverage that would compete with CNN in Spanish and other corporate media sources for the region.

A Climate Change Justice Tribunal: The nations agreed to establish a regional tribunal charged with holding countries accountable for their impact on climate change. The plan calls on the tribunal to sanction countries that fall short of environmental commitments, and to increase pressure on developed countries in particular.

In addition to these agreements on ALBA initiatives, the governments represented in Cochabamba also declared their firm backing for the ousted democratically elected government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras. Mr. Zelaya's Foreign Minister was a participant in the Cochabamba summit and spoke to the crowd assembled in the stadium Saturday afternoon.

A Sea of Hats – the Social Summit

While the Presidential summit offered up sweeping declarations and the trappings of power, the parallel meeting of social organizations felt like a community event. Nearly 700 delegates participated from 40 countries. The main hall of the hotel Casa de Campestre outside the city, where the meetings took place, buzzed with representatives from countries across the region and every manner of social concern, from women's rights to protection of the planet.

Elsewhere in the world when social movements head to the same meeting spot as official summits, the agenda is primarily protest, and often to shut down the summit altogether. In Latin America, where progressive governments close to social movements have swept the region, a different approach has taken root –
the 'social summit'. Here social movements gather to discuss a variety of subjects, including many of the same subjects being discussed by the heads of state. Their conclusions are addressed not only to those governments but also to the people of their respective countries.

In some respects these social summits serve as incubators for ideas and debates that eventually find their way into the official summits. One clear example is the 2008 decision by the government of Bolivia to withdraw from participating in the secretive World Bank trade court (ICSID) that took jurisdiction over the Bechtel vs. Bolivia case in the aftermath of the Cochabamba Water Revolt. The initiative to leave ICSID began in a previous social summit.

Before a sea of hats, leaders of the Cochabamba social summit last weekend presented conclusions from the various issue roundtables that took place over two days – on women's rights, indigenous autonomy, community development, climate change and other concerns. These reports were in turn presented to the Presidents on Saturday.

An activist from Venezuela explained that the discussions in a roundtable on community economics focused on how to maintain "equality of working conditions and the maintenance of the environment; as well as the rural and indigenous production.” Another participant from northern Bolivia came to assert the right of indigenous communities to self-determination, “so that we can determine our own norms and govern ourselves, with respect for the Mother Earth.”

This is where the seeds of initiatives in future official summits were planted.

A Sea of Flags

On Saturday afternoon the two summits – the one of the powerful and the other of the humble – came together in a packed soccer stadium under sunny skies. The stage in front was lined with Presidents and the stands pulsed with flags and banners. As the Presidents filled the afternoon air with speeches the representatives from social organizations looked on from the front rows.

President Morales called on his U.S. counterpart, President Barack Obama, to drop U.S. sanctions against Cuba. President Chavez repeated the slogans of Morales' re-election bid and called on Bolivian voters to support him. Nicaraguan President Ortega donned a Bolivian miners hat.

To some, the official summit and its social movements partner seemed like a hopeful sign of a new approach to governing and a challenge to a global order bent on serving only the privileged. To others it appeared an exercise in rhetoric with little real impact on the lives it is purported to serve.

But by any measure it was encouraging to see lively and open debate around an international trade meeting – instead of a battle with riot cops and tear gas.

View a slide show from the ALBA and social movements summits here.


The article for this post was prepared by Democracy Center intern Jessica Aguirre with contributions from Aldo Orellana and editing by Jim Shultz. The video was prepared by Democracy Center intern Anders Vang Nielsen. The slide show was assembled by Jessica Aguirre from photos taken by members of the Democracy Center team.

Presidents, Presidents Everywhere

Presidents, Presidents everywhere and not a juice to drink.

The Presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua are all headed into Cochabamba this afternoon, along with a host of other diplomats from Latin America’s left, for a two-day summit of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos (ALBA). We have a team covering it and will have more news about the politics of the summit coming soon.

But first, here is how it went down this morning in Plaza Colon.

When I heard the loud crying it sounded like someone’s child had been hit by a bus. I walked faster to see what had happened but saw no child, only a ruckus in the middle of the street around the familiar cart of a woman I pass and talk with every morning who sells fresh squeezed fruit juice in the corner of the tree-lined plaza. Her oranges and grapefruit, all carefully peeled just after dawn, were strewn across the pavement.

The cries were coming from her as she scrambled, with little assistance, to gather them up before they were splattered and destroyed by the morning traffic. Two young policemen in blue uniforms were pushing her along.

After helping her gather up the last of the fruit from the pavement, dodging turning trufis and cars that seemed to pay no heed, I tried to find out what happened. Why was she being moved? Why were the police so eager to get this humble Quechua woman with just one eye away from the corner where she ekes out a tiny living each day pouring juice for passers by?

It didn’t take long to figure out the answer to that question – the summit.

“We are just following orders,” one of the young policemen told me. “They want the juice sellers cleared out of the plaza. I guess they don’t think it looks good.” In their haste to follow those orders the police had managed to push the old woman into such a frenzy of fear and traffic that she tipped her cart and spilled her fruit. This made it her fault, I was told.

So there it is. Somewhere in the bowels of government – perhaps in the Cochabamba’s conspicuously corrupt Mayor’s office or in the stratospheres of national power in La Paz – some bureaucrat or politician decided that this woman in a straw hat and long skirt turning fruit into juice was not a suitable image for visiting dignitaries to see.

What? Did someone in government fear that President Hugo Chavez might be sent into an epileptic seizure at the sight of a peeled grapefruit? Were there terrorist concerns, that perhaps she might throw discarded rinds at a President’s head or suddenly run her bent metal cart into a passing motorcade?

What else might these heads of state and their entourages find offensive? The guy downstairs with the nut cart? He’s a little shifty. The maracyua ice cream at Dumbos? That orange is a weird color. To be honest, I am not entirely sure that the socks I put on this morning match all that well. Should I be cautious about crossing the “offensiveness” line if I pass by the Hotel Diplomat today on my way to lunch? Seen at a close distance, the socks could induce President Ortega of Nicaragua to have a heart attack, possibly.

Let’s talk about what all these leaders evidently will not take offense at. They apparently are not offended in any fashion by the periodic loud passing of rifle-carrying police on motorcycles who are burning up the streets of Cochabamba today. Similarly, we are to find no offense in the fleet of smoked-windowed SUVs and late model sedans that are evidently the required transportation for those in power.

This is democracy’s real cancer – the arrogance of power. Let us be clear. This mental illness that allows those in power to hustle humble juice women off the street, or have nurses shot on rooftops, or any of the other offenses that come with it is not monopolized by any ideology or any nationality. There are people who suffer from it spread across the across left and right, and the north and south. And they are drawn to power, as the saying goes, “like flies to shit.”

Here is what I think should happen. I think that we should find out who made this decision and do the following. We should tie them for an hour to the footbridge in the middle of Plaza Colon and let the women who sell juice in its four corners pummel he or she with peels and the occasional whole grapefruit. Then that person’s name should be placed on a list of people who will never be allowed to wield public authority again, ever, in any country.

Oh yes, the ALBA summit is about much bigger things that one poor woman tumbled with her fruit in the street in downtown Cochabamba. There are trade accords to negotiate, declarations on Honduras to make, discussions about environmental destruction and dolaraization of the region’s economies.

But politics and political power begins with how it treats the most humble. If it can’t get that right then it isn’t likely to get the rest right either. Based on that criteria and the scene this morning in Plaza Colon, this summit doesn’t look to be getting off to a good start.


Answers to Last Week’s Bolivia News Quiz

1. None, it was a trick question.

2. Residents near the Kara Kara city dump blockaded the entrance to demand the dump’s closure due to the contamination caused to the local environment and water.

3. President Evo Morales announced (through the Vice President) that he will not debate any of his opponents in the December Presidential vote.

4. 47% is the current level of voter support for Morales reported in a recent national poll. 17% is the support level reported for his nearest opponent, former Cochabamba Governor Manfred Reyes Villa.

5. Severe drought.

6. The Paraguayan government has objected to what it called hidden plans by Bolivia to purchase new military airplanes.

7. Miss Peru.

Bolivia News Quiz

Okay readers, here is a little experiment to see which of you has been paying most attention to news events in Bolivia over the past week.

Below is a set of questions. Try your luck! We look forward to your answers in the comments section below and we will post the correct answers here next week.

1. Which leading candidate for the Presidency of Bolivia this past week declared his intention to shut down the U.S. Embassy in La Paz and convert the white granite building into a new public university for campesinos and others traditionally excluded from higher education?

2. Why were the streets of Cochabamba dirtier than usual this week?

3. What announcement was made this week with respect to debates in the upcoming Presidential election?

4. Why did the following two numbers become significant in Bolivian politics this week: 47 and 17?

5. What crisis do parts of Santa Cruz and the Altiplano share this year?

6. Why did the government of Paraguay get ticked off at the Government of Bolivia this week?

7. Who did President Morales invite to Bolivia to see the dancing of the Diablada (above) at Carnival in Oruro?

The Blockade

Last week in the altiplano en route to a destination I won’t name because I don’t want a lot of other people to go there and screw it up.

From the airport in El Alto I headed to the small street in La Paz, between the fresh trout and the stale bread, where the buses leave for the town to which I was traveling. That’s how buses to the smaller towns work here, no central terminal for those, just small storefront offices in secret corners that everyone who lives here just seems to know.

I have made this trip before a number of times, it’s a pilgrimage of sorts, but when I arrived at the small bus office it was closed. I and the other slightly confused passengers were told by no one in particular that there was a road blockade ninety minutes down the road on the altiplano and so the buses were canceled for the day.

Bummer.

But then I noticed a couple of other minivans loading passengers. For reference, these are not your U.S.-style late-model minivans; these are well-used Toyota museum pieces. One of the drivers assured me that the small bus would actually arrive, not to worry.

“We’ll take a detour around here and around there and eventually we’ll get through.”

“In how long?”

“Eventually.” A smile.

So I handed over my well-traveled blue backpack for loading onto the roof and twisted my 6 foot tall frame into a front seat made for a Japanese person five and a half feet tall, which still beat sitting in one of the back seats made for a Bolivian five feet tall, and off we went.

The first hour and a half was your pretty normal Bolivian bus ride. I chatted up the driver and a young woman in between us, Hortensia, who was headed home to her small town. I pondered the fact that Hortensia is a name relatively rare in the U.S. (I checked in the Social Security data base of popular names. It doesn’t make the top 1,000.) and shared small green coca leaves from by translucent green plastic bag. The very large older woman in braids and a bowler had behind me seemed to get a chuckle out of the gringo passing her the coca.

That was right about when we hit the blockade. It was a gathering of about fifty people in the center of the small road, which was blocked with rocks – as if the fifty people were not enough of a deterrent to going onward. Most were men though there were a number of women as well. And of course my curious eye turned most to the half dozen dapper Bolivian gentlemen in red cloth ponchos who held large whips in their hands – los ponchos rojos.

I could tell from the start that our driver, a young fellow in glasses, was the kind of guy who had exactly the street starts needed in such a situation. Street smarts are a remarkably ample resource in Bolivia, and a useful one. Gringos generally don’t have all that much, especially not in the altiplano in the middle of a road blockade. Always best to confide in the street smarts of others in such situations, I say.

Another young man outside in a leather jacket who seemed to know our driver came up and they began a ten-minute chat, which mostly seemed to be about getting the driver’s commitment to support him in the upcoming elections for officials in the drivers’ union. I assumed there was some inferred quid pro quo involved as well with our being given permission to pass through the blockade. If that was the case, I was an eager supporter of his candidacy.

This begat a negotiation between the would-be union leader and a few of the men on the blockade. There seemed to be some discussion about whether someone else needed to be called by cel. phone to render a decision on our request, but either because of bad cel. reception or a sudden burst of spontaneous leadership a decision was taken on the spot (sort of).

“Just wait thirty minutes,” the driver was told, “and then you can go.” I supposed that in order for the blockade to maintain a certain level of street cred we needed to be inconvenienced a certain basic amount and thirty minutes seemed a reasonable compromise.

Oh right, I forgot to mention what the blockade was about. It seems that there was a dispute between two local towns about which one would get to have its favored local be the official MAS candidate for diputado. Apparently the town that did not win this particular request from the Evo high command decided that a blockade might do the trick to change some minds.

In the Bolivian altiplano the road blockade is sort of like a party primary is in the U.S., though I suppose less costly. This is that strange Bolivian political tradition I still have yet to understand. In order to make our feelings heard by the powers that be we will inconvenience a large number of people who have nothing to do with things at all, and ourselves for that matter. This will make them listen.

I don’t mean to seem culturally biased here, but there really has to be a better way.

So, as we waited our assigned thirty minutes I thought, why not jump out and offer some of my fine Yungas coca to those fellows in the red ponchos. What could be more hospitable? But then I noticed that none of the other passengers seemed interested in getting out for some fresh air, nor the driver.

As I said, it is really best to rely on the street smarts of others in this situation.

It was not long after that when another fellow in a red poncho came by and seemed a little upset with the thirty-minutes-then-go arrangement we’d worked out, punctuated with a wave at me through the window and some mention of, “y tu gringo.” This I took as a bad sign.

In the midst of what seemed like an increasingly heated argument over what should be done about our situation, another young man came over and through the left window lectured our driver it what seemed a slightly condescending tone.

“Why don’t you just to the same thing everyone else is doing? Just back up fifty meters and take the road to the left that goes through the town above us and just pass the blockade by entirely.”

This seemed to both the driver and to me to be very sound advice. And so while the men in the red ponchos continued their argument with one another we turned around and took the longer road past the sheep and the town, and past the road blockade.

Everyone was happy to have a celebratory round of coca leaves from the gringo and I was happy to arrive at my destination, just a half hour off schedule.

By the time I took the road in the opposite direction back toward La Paz on Friday, all blockades had been taken down and I presume some happy compromise had been worked out in the Altiplano Primary.

Asi es.