BOLIVIA: Bolivia's nail-biting presidential election count continued yesterday as Mr Evo Morales, a radical indigenous activist, gained ground on his rivals.
From Michael McCaughan
"The government is scared and the gringos are trembling," said Mr Morales, a former Bolivian legislator expelled from parliament last year because of his active support for the nation's coca growers.
With 92 per cent of votes counted, Mr Morales remained 40,000 votes behind former President Mr Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) and 20,000 votes behind Mr Manfredo Reyes Villa, of the New Republican Force, (NFR).
Mr Morales, candidate for Bolivia's Socialist Movement (MAS), languished in fourth place in the polls last week until Mr Manuel Rocha, US ambassador to Bolivia, warned that Washington would cut off aid if Bolivians chose a candidate who defended coca production. Mr Morales happily declared Mr Rocha "my best campaign agent" as the ill-advised comments probably doubled the candidate's vote.
Even if Mr Morales doesn't win he will be a crucial power broker when parliament meets this month to elect the next president, a constitutional requirement when no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of votes.
Mr Sanchez de Losada, a wealthy businessman, has 22 per cent of votes, followed by former army captain Mr Reyes Villas, on 21.5 per cent, with Morales on 21 per cent, but likely to gain a substantial share of the outstanding votes which belong to isolated, indigenous hamlets.
Mr Morales, a former miner, has won respect for his uncompromising support for the nation's "cocaleros" who have cultivated small coca plots for local consumption for centuries.
"I wouldn't have survived without coca, nor for that matter would Bolivia," said Mr Morales,"When the United States says it will eradicate coca, it wants an excuse to dominate us."
The US has tied economic aid to the crackdown on coca cultivation, leading to bloody conflict in the Chapare region, where coca is produced. Bolivia's congress, under US pressure, approved draconian laws which put subsistence farmers on the same "terrorist" footing as drug barons exporting billions of dollars of cocaine to the US.
Mr Morales returns to his own farm each weekend, where he cultivates the traditional half acre of coca, for personal use.
In previous decades Bolivia's proud Quechua and Aymara Indians were virtual slaves in mines or plantations. They held few seats in Congress until the latest election, in which Indian parties look set to win at least a fifth of the seats.
The main election issues were coca, corruption and globalisation.