The 60 per cent mandate that >President Evo Morales received on Sunday for a third term is remarkably bigger than the first one — 54 per cent — that he got in >2005 . That is a measure of the continuing popular disenchantment with the economic policies of the 1990s. The latest verdict also gives a sense of the fervour with which Bolivia’s first President of indigenous descent has delivered on his welfarist redistributive agenda for nearly a decade in one of the poorest countries of South America. The aggressive nationalisation of the Andean country’s natural wealth has constituted the backbone of Morales’s economic triumph. The size of Bolivia’s economy has tripled in recent years and it is expected to emerge as the region’s fastest growing state this year. Higher wages and cash transfers to the elderly and children that have characterised the Morales era undoubtedly lent substance to the President’s rhetoric on anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism. However, there is growing concern that the commodities boom of the last decade may soon fade away as in the case of the other countries of the region. The government has said that a massive programme of industrialisation would be ushered in to boost growth and generate jobs. This may be the right strategy for La Paz to adopt, given that the current share of investment is just about 19 per cent of Bolivia’s GDP. A shift away from the heavy reliance on natural gas as a source of investment would be appropriate in view of the shale gas explorations in the U.S. and countries in Latin America.
On the political front, Bolivia seems to fit into a familiar pattern of Latin American leaders serving successive terms in office. Brazil’s Workers Party, in power since 2002, is seeking another term for President Dilma Rousseff — not to mention other examples in the region. The phenomenon of political parties centred on the personalities of strong leaders, who in turn obtain popular backing during elections, is natural in countries where democratic rule of law is a relatively recent experience. Their ways may sometimes raise concerns about constitutional checks and balances. For instance, Bolivia’s Constitutional Court last year cleared Mr. Morales’s bid to run for a third term. It reasoned that an existing provision allowing an incumbent President one re-election was amended in his first term and that a presidential term is computed from the time of the adoption of the new Constitution. His voters evidently did not question such an interpretation on Sunday. Its macro-economic policies have constituted the main source of the stability of the Morales regime. Democratic accountability and an investment-friendly climate may be the key to his future success.
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