When I first heard that socialist Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia (with a reported 51% majority in a crowded first round vote, I thought, “Oh crap, here comes the coup.” It was just 2002 when the US nearly got him elected by threatening to cut off all aid if he won. Hubris, it would seem, breeds defiance.
Morales ran on a platform based on ending Bolivian involvment in the US government’s eradication program. According to his Wikipedia entry:
Morales is the left-wing leader of Bolivia’s cocalero movement, a loose federation of coca leaf-growing campesinos who are resisting the efforts of the United States government to eradicate coca in the province of Chapare in southeastern Bolivia. Morales is also leader of the Bolivian political party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS in its Spanish initials, which resemble the word m
