Bolivia: Overstaying His Welcome

BOLIVIA

Overstaying His Welcome

Rain finally extinguished the massive wildfires that burned through almost 10 million acres of the Bolivian rainforest since August, the BBC reported recently.

President Evo Morales isn’t likely to receive a similar respite. Latin America’s longest-serving head of state – he first took office in 2006 – faces his biggest re-election challenge when voters go to the polls Oct. 20.

Critics blasted Morales for letting farmers clear more land in the Amazon region of the South American country, then refusing to declare a national emergency or to seek international aid to combat the fires once they started. Argentina and Chile were willing to help but, as indigenous groups and others protested Morales’ inaction, the president refused to accept their assistance.

The first indigenous leader of Bolivia, Morales is a leftist. But he claimed that asking for foreign help would undercut Bolivia’s sovereignty, the same argument Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro used to snub international help to put out fires in his country, World Politics Review noted.

Morales’ rigid stance on the fires hints at the authoritarianism in his government that concerns many voters.

In a 2016 referendum on whether to allow the president to seek a fourth term in office, a majority of Bolivians voted no. But Morales asked the country’s top constitutional court to overturn the vote. It did, so now he’s on the ballot.

Since then, he hasn’t done much to assuage his critics. The same tribunal that annulled the referendum, for example, recently threatened to sanction a university that published poll results unfavorable to Morales. The poll found that the president would receive only 31 percent of the vote, or less than the 40 percent minimum necessary to avoid a December runoff, reported Reuters.

Morales’ main opponent, Carlos Mesa, a former president, said the court’s decision showed how the president kept government officials on a tight leash that was likely to get tighter if he won a fourth term. “If we continue with Señor Morales as president, we will go from authoritarianism to dictatorship,” Mesa told the Financial Times.

An economic slowdown is also taking the shine off Morales’ image. For much of his tenure, Bolivia has enjoyed annual economic growth of about 4.5 percent, the Associated Press wrote. He’s spent lavishly on infrastructure projects with that extra money, building new roads, schools and stadiums. But the International Monetary Fund recently predicted that growth would slow.

Many Bolivians once supported Morales, whom they viewed as a man of the people. But even such a man can overstay his welcome.