Word: bolivia
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...Morales promised recently that should he be elected president of Bolivia on Sunday, he would be "a nightmare for the U.S." Bolivia, as the second poorest nation in the hemisphere, is an unlikely specter disturbing Washington's dreams. But he could, nonetheless, present a similar nuisance value in Washington to that of his self-proclaimed ?model,? Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez. For one thing, Morales wants to fully legalize the growing of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, reversing decades of U.S. efforts to eradicate the crop in Bolivia. And he also hopes to nationalize the tens...
...Voter attitudes south of the Rio Grande show mounting popular rejection of the free-market reforms and trade agreements long promoted by Washington, but which are seen by Latin Americans as widening the region's epic gap between rich and poor. But in Bolivia, the vote also threatens to tear the country apart. If no candidate wins more than 50% at the polls, a president must be chosen by Congress, where Morales's Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) will likely have less clout than the parties of his more conservative rivals such as Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga, a former President...
That new populist bravado, which Chávez has backed up with a multibillion- dollar social-spending program at home, has spread to South American countries like Bolivia, where two Presidents have resigned in less than two years after raucous protests calling for the nationalization of vast, newly discovered natural-gas reserves. Says Amy Myers Jaffe, an analyst at the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston: "Chávez has seemingly become a leader who can galvanize antiglobalization agendas anywhere...
...region's neo-leftist revival extends far beyond the bluster of Chavez: At least eight Latin American nations either have recently elected left-wing heads of state (including the region's largest economy, Brazil) or have leftists leading in the polls for upcoming presidential elections (including Mexico and Bolivia). Failure to engage the region's new politics will not only have economic consequences; it could also imperil other key U.S. goals in the hemisphere such as the war on drugs, immigration reform and the consolidation of democracy...
...Efforts to push regional free trade agreements seem to be faring better than the grand vision of a united economic zone from the Arctic Circle to Argentina's Tierra del Fuego. There is a push for an Andean free trade agreement involving Columbia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, and the U.S. Congress recently ratified the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Indeed, U.S. officials sought to play down the disputes over trade. "This is not a meeting just about trade," said Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon. "This is about the leaders of the American countries who have come together to talk...