6 de abril de 2010 | Noticias | Anti-neoliberalismo
Everyone happy
New electoral victory for MAS in Bolivia
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The ruling party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) won six of the nine local governments in Sunday’s elections, when mayors and MPs were also elected. President Evo Morales said he was positive that the results ratified that the democratic and participatory Bolivia is undergoing an unstoppable process of structural reforms for the benefit of the people.
Meanwhile, the opposition -especially the neoliberal right-wing- showed satisfied and celebrated their victory in most of the country’s mayoralties. The official results will be issued on April 14.
MAS won in the departments of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Pando, so far one of the bastions of the right wing, which is part of the so called “half moon” in the east of Bolivia, together with Santa Cruz, Beni and Tarija (where the opposition won).
Evo Morales called the opposition to join the process of change and to leave the confrontation aside for the coming years. Before the elections Morales had said that he would not work with the governors of other parties. The president had said several times that the opposition, as part of civic movements and economic and political groups in Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija departments, aimed to stop the process of change during his first administration without realizing that it damaged the development of the regions.
However, Morales said on Sunday that he is willing to coordinate the work with the opposition sectors that won the mayoralties and governments, as long as they put the people’s interests before the partisan or personal interests.
Morales highlighted the advance of MAS in Bolivia. “We raised from nine per cent in the 1995 elections to over 20 per cent in 2002, 54 per cent in 2005, and 64 per cent in December”, said Morales, cited by Agencia Boliviana de Informacion. “In the 2005 elections, MAS obtained only three Prefectures, while this year it reached six”, he said.
Morales’ words stress what the Bolivian Ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon said last December when Morales was reelected President: “This is another democratic victory of a deep revolution that Bolivia is going through”. Morales’ landslide victory “shows that without doubt, the Bolivian people has said enough of the neoliberal model, enough of the oligarchic power groups, we must undertake a process of change”.
Solon emphasized that “there had never been in the history of Bolivia a movement and a leader that had won so many elections and referenda as the ones we have won in the past four years”.
