Diciembre 14, 2004
Not So Fast
When MAS candidate Gonzalo Lema announced that he would “support” the first-place candidate in the Cochabamba mayor race (even if it meant finishing far below 50%), Evo Morales probably spit out his coffee in disgust. However, Evo is claiming that he understood support, as being accepting of the inevitable coalition of the first place finisher Chaly Terceros (CIU) and another political party. Little did he know, supposedly, that Lema assumed that support meant giving votes to Chaly.
Now Evo has stepped in saying that there is no way the MAS councilmembers would give their vote to Terceros. After all, he argues, Terceros was a big part of NFR, the ruling party in Cochabamba for the past ten years and one notorious for corruption.
This opens the door for the third and fourth place finishers, with one councilmember apiece (UCS and NFR), to join the ruling coalition. All it would take is one vote to put Terceros’ CIU over the top to assume the mayorship.
Technicially Lema, as the 2nd place finisher with approximately 2% difference, is eligible to become mayor. However, it would take the support from both UCS and NFR to put him over the 6 votes needed. This scenario is far-fetched because the two parties would only give them their votes in exchange for some patronage.
Why is Evo suddenly making waves after a week or more of saying nothing? Perhaps he finally realized that the MAS took none of the 4 urban major cities, or none of the other Department capitals. Even though it is estimated that he improved a bit on his 21% total vote in the 2002 Presidential elections, it is foolish to think all that support for the 327 MAS candidates translates to support for him. Championing oneself as the major political force in the country takes more than a couple of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishes.
Yet, part of the appeal of Sr. Lema was that he was an invited member of the MAS party. A lot of people respected Lema and felt that he could be independent from MAS nationally. There were promises that Evo would take a hands-off approach in Cochabamba, but now clearly he has both hands clearly metidas in the situation.
It is still inevitable that Terceros will become Cochabamba mayor, although the possibility now exists that there will be some sort of agreement with UCS or NFR in exchange for some nice government jobs.
Posted by eduardo at Diciembre 14, 2004 09:06 AM