Bolivia: Evo Morales Ready to Take Office

After 80 percent of the ballots have been counted, congressman Morales, leader of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS), obtained 51 percent of the voters’ support, so he doesn’t have to wait for Congress to choose between the two most voted presidential hopefuls.

That majority, which should shortly be officially confirmed, ensures the MAS leader the presidency without a runoff.

Under the law of the land, for a presidential hopeful to win the elections must have more than 50 percent of the votes. In case none of the running candidates reach that figure, then Congress decide who is the next president between the two most voted politicians.

MAS landslide victory, considered the most crushing of the last decades, thwarted predictions by the right that predicted a low margin between Morales and neoliberal ex President Jorge Quiroga, who won 31 percent of the ballots.

People’s voting also did away with the US predictions of a likely post-election string of violence.

Following the announcement, people rejoiced at the MAS win, and tensions only came from Otto Reich, former US special envoy to Western Hemisphere for the Secretary of State, who threatened to take reprisals if the movement implements its policies.

Thousands of Morales supporters chanting "We feel it, Evo president," set off fireworks and danced in the streets of La Paz, as well as the eastern cities of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz as election results were announced.

The new government will surely faced the rightwing hostility opposing changes, as they won important provincial governments.

We are living a new time "and the Third Millennium belongs to peoples, not to the Empire," stated the indigenous leader on Sunday.

Results proved the MAS will ensure governance, he pointed out, and ratified he is willing to receive the cooperation of legislators from other parties seeking to change the nation. He said he’s open to talk with all sectors.

The new president elect vowed to solve the thorniest problems of the majority, restructure the economic model and fight neoliberalism because it will be like combating the blockade of the economic growth.

He pledged to open a new Bolivian chapter of equity, justice and peace with social justice, tasks he considered attainable only with the work of leaders, lawmakers, social bodies and the entire nation.

Morales also called to raze discrimination, historic hatred and contempt for indigenous people "to live in unity and diversity by changing the neoliberal model and eliminating the neocolonial state."

The Bolivian people’s victory can become a paradigm in Latin America "because we need allied triumphant movements in the region to rebuild the Tahuantinsuyo (Inca Empire) and the Great Motherland Bolivar dreamed of.

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