Word: bolivia
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Morales sailed to victory thanks largely to that indigenous cohort, which is concentrated in Bolivia's Western highlands and makes up about two-thirds of the country's population. Like Hugo Chávez, his left-wing counterpart in Venezuela, Morales has lavished unprecedented social programs on the poor, including free medical care, stipends for new mothers and the elderly, and a massive program for literacy that includes payments to low-income families who make sure their children attend school. "Evo knows what it's like to be like us," said Ilda Condori, an indigenous voter waiting outside a polling...
...analysts say it wasn't just Morales' social largesse that ensured a larger landslide this time. Critics foresaw macroeconomic disaster three years ago when Morales, fulfilling a campaign promise, nationalized Bolivia's vast natural-gas reserves. Among the doubters was the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington. Today the IMF is hailing Bolivia's projected economic growth rate of almost 3%, one of the hemisphere's highest, as well as the fact that the country's economy has averaged almost 5% annual growth since Morales came to office, Bolivia's best performance in three decades. "Bolivia is the most profound...
...while Morales has stabilized Bolivia's economy, he has all too often polarized its politics at home and abroad. "The country has become much more conflictive because of Evo," says Ximena Delvillar, 36, who lives in a relatively affluent section of La Paz. Bolivia, in fact, seemed on the verge of a civil war last year between the indigenous people and the white economic élite of the Eastern lowlands. That upper class is hardly blameless, but even Bolivians sympathetic to Morales complain that he and MAS have consolidated inordinate power and are wielding it with a vengeance against political...
...acknowledges Morales' sometimes autocratic bent. "He inherited this from his years as a union leader," he says. "He has trouble trusting others, and so it means he's involved in 50 decisions every day, which is not always a good thing." But the process earlier this year to rewrite Bolivia's constitution, which increased indigenous rights and let Morales run for President one more time, satisfied democratic criteria; and even Morales' decision last year to expel the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, for allegedly meddling in Bolivian politics was supported by most Bolivians, who feel Washington's insistence...
Sources close to the Bolivian President tell TIME that as U.S.-Bolivia relations improve under Obama, Morales plans to reinstate a U.S. ambassador soon. Meanwhile, the crowd outside the presidential palace in La Paz Sunday night, Dec. 6, seemed to celebrate Bolivia's indigenous past as well as its first indigenous President. Banners and T-shirts sported the faces not only of Che but of Tupac Katari, the leader of an 18th century Aymara uprising that almost drove out the Spanish colonizers. Katari was eventually captured and drawn and quartered, but before dying, he warned, "I will return...