Morales Expected to Win

It certainly appears that Evo Morales is expected to win in Bolivia and as Boz notes here, Jorge Quiroga has conceded.

So now comes the hard part: governing. Only time will tell if Morales can make a difference and I think that these words are worth remembering:

Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University development economist and former economic adviser here, says he empathizes with Bolivia's poor and agrees that energy companies should pay higher taxes. But he says Bolivia cannot close itself off to the world. "Protectionism isn't really a viable strategy for a small country," he said.

If Mr. Morales does become president, he might well find that the slogans that rang in the streets are not much help in running a poor, troubled country.

Mr. [Lula] da Silva, the Brazilian president, acknowledged as much in comments he made Wednesday in Colombia: The challenge, he said, is "to show if we are capable as politicians to carry out what we, as union leaders, demanded of government."

Lula's words are very telling as it certainly appears that he learned quickly that being on the outside criticizing is a lot easier than being on the inside governing. I won't be surprised if Morales finds the reality of governing to be as challenging as Lula has if not more so.

The other factor weighing against Morales is the patience of his supporters:

One senator from Mr. Morales's own party, Román Loayza, said this week that whoever won would have three months to nationalize the energy industry and press forward on rewriting the Constitution, or face crippling protests. "This is not something we are saying just to the neoliberals, but also to our brother, Evo," he said. "For that reason, he has to be ready to respond to the people."

For more on Bolivia, checkout Eduardo's comments on Barrio Flores and Miguel's comments at MABB.

Comments

[Russell]

I found a few articles worth checking out on the election, which I link to in this post. btw, nice blog.