Diciembre 03, 2005
Election Everywhere
Take it all in. No, it is not the overpolluted air from the rusty old micros, but the smell of a fast-approaching election. Everywhere you go, anyone you talk to, all they want to talk about are the elections. During my stopover in Santa Cruz yesterday morning, the airport television sets ran non-stop election ads. I have not watched much television thus far, but I have seen Samuel Doria Medina's ad with the huge Bolivian flags waving in the background several times now. There is an identical one featuring one of the founders of the Nacion Camba, Carlos Dabdoub kissing the Bolivian flag running in Santa Cruz, but I have yet to see it in Cochabamba.
There are random cars driving around the city with flags waving. Window decals featuring Tuto Quiroga's PODEMOS can be seen on Volkswagon bugs around town. Mini-buses feature posters indicating their support for Evo Morales and MAS.
In various spots around the city, you can see teenagers wearing the colors of one of the parties handing out flyers. Not old enough to vote, one wonders what persuaded them to get involved with campaign. Could it be youthful idealism? Or maybe a couple of pesos in their pocket?
That brings me to the issue concerning why anyone gets involved with campaigning in the first place. PODEMOS is well-known for its embrace of transfugas, or individuals who were once part of the other traditional parties. However, it is becomding more clear that even MAS will operate as a traditional party. There are people getting involved with their campaign hoping to score a government job if MAS comes out victorious.
However, who can blame individuals seeing government jobs as their way out of such economic instability? The relatively small middle class in Bolivia was created by this dependency on a political system that encourages and manipulates through the patronage system. It seemingly seems worse off here than in times before, as there is an uncertainty of what might happen if either Tuto or Evo becomes President. Part of it may arise from scare tactics by pegging the other as the most radical of the right and left, respectively, than what is probably an a bit of an over-reaction.
Posted by eduardo at Diciembre 3, 2005 02:36 PM