Nutter wins Bolivia Election

[ag]

Who knows what will happen there. Dangerous radicals, mostly, tend to become somewhat responsible once in office (Chavez excepted). The problem is, Bolivia does not have much space to fall further: if he is not carefull, we'd have a nasty civil war shortly (and a likely secession of the wealthier East).

Still, I actually hesitate to blame Morales supporters: the guy might be dangerous, but he is a symptom, not the disease. I guess, if a feudal society persists into modern times, there aren't many routes left for a liberal reform (something the self-declared conservatives here should think about).

I'd give the guy his 100 days before jumping to conclusions, but it ain't look good.

[ag]

Unless Chuquisaqua  tilts towards the right as more votes come in, It looks like Morales would have to be very radical very quickly to trigger a civil war.  Hopefully, he'll end up being more like Lula and less like Hugo.

Why would that matter? You mean territorial contiguity of the West? But provinces are not internaly homogenous, and the narrow tongue of Chuquisaqua would be naturally occupied by the westerners.

Anyway, of course this stands: Morales would have to be very radical very quickly to spark a civil war - this is always true.  The date to watch is sometime in June, I think - isn't it then that Santa Cruz is scheduled to have a vote on autonomy (I might be wrong here)? If he is not careful, it will become a vote on independence.

[ag]

Latin America's glorious left-wing trend continues! Hopefully Obrador extends it to Mexico next year.

God forbid! Some of us actually live in Mexico!

AMLO is actually despised by the traditional Mexican left - he is a common PRI goon, who had a personality clash with the local party organization in Tabasco and decided that then newly-created PRD presented better opportunities. Despite his rants about the PRI, most of his closest aids were active in that party until quite recently. You can imagine the resentment of the traditional PRD types: it's not for nothing that the old man Cardenas makes sure that his whispered "endorsements" of AMLO sound as if they've been extracted under duress. In fact, PAN's Calderon, sensing a vulnerability here, has been sending not-too-subtle (and fairly successful, for a "rightwinger") feelers to some of the traditional PRD supporters.

In fact, he was anything but a leftist mayor of the capital city, unless you believe that freezing public transit projects in favor of highway construction is somehow "leftist".  His name is closely associated with exactly one major social program (a modest pension program for those over 70), which is dwarfed by the social programs introduced by the "rightist" panista federal government (housing subsidies for the poor, national insurance, etc.). Pretty much all other social handouts in the city have been very transparent wages: "you'd get this and that if and only if you are recorded as present at such and such rallies I organize".

The main problem with AMLO is not that he is leftist (I happen to know his Economics guru - he is well-educated and moderately competent, so I don't expect much of a change in this direction under him). The main problems are that he is a) horrendously corrupt, even by Mexican standards (though not for a personal gain - he is monkishly ascetic - but achieving political gains requires a lot of money, the result being that all his closest aides and their grandmothers have been implicated in nasty things left and right, though they keep their mouths shut about the boss) and b) probably, not entirely mentally healthy (he does exhibit a likely case of paranoia). Except for Obrador's personal ascetisism and paranoia , there is not much difference between him and PRI's Madrazo: both "twins" are ruthless old-time PRI goons from Tabasco. Both run on a de facto platform of "Corruption and Ruthlessness, masked as National-Socialism for Personal Benefit". If you care at all about Mexico, you wouldn't want any of them in power.

[ag]

You make Obrador sound a lot like Helmut Kohl.

I don't think Herr Kohl was going around claiming that every time anyone coughs in his direction it is a "criminal plot against my life", or am I wrong?

On the second count (money problems) - sure.  But the difference is that Mexican institutions are a lot more fragile than German, so they can't handle as much.

[ag]

Well that dampened my enthusiasm. But if someone doesn't like Fox, and PRD/Obrador have the problems you mentioned, then isn't the only alternative the PRI? Just b/c someone doesn't like PAN doesn't mean they support the return of decades of corruption. Is PRD a good choice for liberals besides Obrador?

PAN's Calderon is, actually, not much associated with Fox: in fact, Fox fired him from the government when he declared his intentions to run for presidency. Of course, he is simply a more traditional panista than Fox, so if you don't like PAN (in particular, their clericalism), you'd hate Calderon more than you'd hate Fox.  At the very least, he is the only candidate in this campaign who is personally clean (at least, nobody has dug anything on him so far, despite a lifetime in politics). I guess, it helps to be personally well-off  and popular among the equally well-off party rank-and-file: you don't have to steal neither for personal benefit, nor to acquire influence.  Personal disclosure: except for his Catholicism, he fits me ideologically quite nicely, so I won't have much of a problem voting for him (hey, I actually have a friend who has a friend who is a good friend of his - that's how things are done in Mexico!). His (and his party's) problem is: it's bad to be a lilly white organization in a country like Mexico.

As for "liberals", I prefer the international/European definition of the word (as in "neoliberal"), but I understand that you mean something else (I'd call it "leftist" - though, keep in mind, that  comparisons with the US are dangerous: even those you consider to be on the left wing of the Democratic party in the US would be highly uncomfortable among the Latin American left in terms of economic policies, and even some of the Republicans would find many of the Latin American leftists to be strangely socially conservative).  In this sense, the left wing of PRI and the bulk of PRD that derives from the early split in PRI are largely indistinguishable (and, given the demise of the "neo-liberal" wing of the PRI after the last time election loss, the left wing of PRI is the only part of that party that cares about policies and not just about getting rich through government). Further to the left are the elements of the PRD that come from the old Communist Party (like the current acting Mexico City mayor Encinas), but they generally keep their mouths shut, not to embarass their colleagues.  Still, you'd probably find the mainstream PRD (and their "moral leader" Lazaor Cardenas) the most appealing.  In fact, however much I dislike Cardenas's ideology, I wouldn't be afraid to trust him the country of 6 years: he is clean and responsible, and getting through major reforms in any direction in Mexico is impossible anyway.  But he has been outmaneuvred by AMLO and is not running this time (as I mentioned elsewhere, his endorsement of Obrador has been less than ringing: he is said to have told to his son, who happens to be the Governor of Michoacan State, to announce that supports the party candiddate - name not mentioned - and he might have repeated the same in a closed meeting of party activists; he's been careful not to say this in public).

A more interesting candidate could have been Jorge Casta?eda, Fox's former Foreign Secretary. His roots are on the left - the sane (anti-Castro) left - but he was trying to run as a modern candidate for thinking Mexicans (one of my best students in recent years has been active in his campaign). Unfortunately, rather than getting a minor party nomination (when he started, there was still time to create a midget party of his own), he persists in a quixotic campaign to force the Electoral Commission to register himself as an independent, even though the Electoral Code is explicit that only party candidates are allowed. In the process, his credibility has been badly hit, and  even if he is somehow registered, he won't matter.

[ag]

One thing should be made clear: it is hard to imagine the set of circumstances in which an attempt to depose the guy from the outside would not be a disaster for all sides involved. Remember Guatemala's Arbenz and the decades of civil war that eventually followed.  For now, he is elected for a fixed term and constitutionally constrained. If he tries to remove those constraints through a self-coup, it should still be the matter for the Bolivians to resolve, unless something outright extreme happens (e.g., he invades Chile, or something equally crazy).

[ag]

Oh yeah right, that issue. I'd totally forgotten about that.
Say, IIRC Peru lost territory to Chile around then as well. Is this still an issue in Peru too?

Of course it is. Peruvians hate Chileans passionately.  A thoughtless word from any Chilean, in government or otherwise, is enough to cause a nasty international scandal, since in Peru anything will be taken as a  mortal insult which can't be atoned for.  The fact that Chile is now the richest country in the region is enough of an insult by itself.