>>Last Sunday (a week ago) we had national elections here in Bolivia. I found the following points about this election quite interesting:
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Voters could choose among 11 different policital parties, and presidential candidates.
>>The popularity of one of the candidates rose sharply because of careless words spoken by the ambassador of the United States. Basically, the ambassador said: "Don't vote for this man". As a result, many people voted for him, out of protest, or nationalistic feelings. In the meantime, another party speeks of a conspiracy - IOW, they claim the counterproductive recommendation, by the ambassador, was not careless, but on purpose.
>>People here have take "mud-slinging" very seriously - many large posters, portraying candidates for president, vice-president, and congress (of different political parties) were defaced with mud, paint, and things of the sort.
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>>Hilmar.
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>Do you have any comment on these articles?
>
>http://www.pbs.org/now/science/bolivia.html
Seems quite accurate. Let me add that during the riots of the "water wars", about 10 people died in total. Roads were blocked for about two weeks, and commerce lost millions as a result. Tens of thousands of people, mainly in Cochabamba, became unemployed.
(The union leader Oscar Olivera, mentioned in the article, is on the payroll of Manaco (Bata-Bolivia).)
>http://economist.com/world/la/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1214775
Also accurate, according to what I know about the situation. The big question (about the U.S. ambassador) is, of course, "Does a foreign power / ambassador have the right to interfere, like that, in the local elections?" I won't intent to answer that one, but his comments didn't seem to be very prudent, in any case, since they (a) turned out to be extremely counterproductive, and (b) generated lots of protest.
Hilmar.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
