José Antonio Aruquipa 6/18/2002 Million-dollar campaigns and a

Bolivian voters remain unimpressed by a wide-ranging field of candidates in the upcoming general elections.

There are 11 candidates vying for the presidency in the June 30 elections. The winner will take office Aug. 6, replacing President Jorge Quiroga.

For many political parties, however, the elections are a do or die situation, according to political analysts.

"For the past 15 years, the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), Nationalist Democratic Action (ADN) and Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) have formed a system of rotating power and excluding other groups, which has led other social forces to come up with their own way of playing politics," said sociologist Alvaro García Linera.

Bolivia’s political system calls for a candidate to get 50 percent plus one vote in order to be elected president. If a candidate fails to get the total, the different parties and coalitions with congressional representatives then decide who will lead the country for the next five years between the top two finishers. In many cases, the candidate with the top votes is not the one chosen president.

In 1985, MNR’s Víctor Paz Estenssoro received the backing of former dictator Hugo Bánzer, of the ADN. Bánzer, who received the highest number of votes four years later, again threw his support behind a losing candidate, allowing MIR’s Jaime Paz Zamora (1989-93) to occupy the presidency.

Bánzer ran again in 1993, but his support was not needed to help Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada capture the presidency. Sánchez de Lozada (1993-97) governed with the support of the Civic Solidarity Union (UCS). After numerous attempts, Bánzer finally got his chance to return to power in the 1997 elections. He had ruled Bolivia as a dictator from 1971-78.

He was the first president elected under the new system that extended the presidential period to five years, but did not finish his term, resigning in July 2001 after be stricken with cancer (LP, July 30, 2001). His term was finished by Quiroga, who is constitutionally barred from seeking immediate re-election.

All of these governments were marred by corruption scandals that have turned off voters. Aware that the electorate is looking for something new, the traditional parties have turned to soccer players, folksingers and journalists to fill their congressional slates.

Political analysts say the last-minute changes, which have moved many parties away from their traditional ideologies, show the depth of the crisis.

"The parties are fighting to survive. The elections are a break, but what is really at stake is democratic stability," said political scientist Jimena Costa.

A number of familiar faces are in the race, including former Presidents Paz Zamora and Sánchez de Lozada, both of whom have lingering scandals from their past administrations looming over their candidacies.

Paz Zamora is running again as a candidate for MIR, despite having publicly retired from politics in 1994. He quit after a drug-trafficking scandal landed one of his closest political allies, Oscar Eid, in prison for four years.

Sánchez de Lozada is trying to make a comeback, but is plagued by complaints about the economic policies followed by his previous administration. Under his MNR government, Bolivia aggressively privatized state-owned companies.

The MIR and MNR candidates face former big-city mayors, including Ronald MacLean from La Paz, Cochabamba’s Manfred Reyes Villa, a favorite in the race, and Santa Cruz’s Johnny Fernández. MacLean and Reyes Villa are independents, while Fernández represents the UCS. Reyes Villa led the pack in mid-June, followed by Sánchez de Lozada and Paz Zamora

Also in the race are anti-establishment candidates, including two lawyers, Alberto Costa and René Blattman, former justice minister under Sánchez de Lozada, economist Rolando Morales and hotel owner Nicolás Valdivia.

Two of the country’s best-known campesino leaders are also in the race. Felipe Quispe is representing the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement and Evo Morales is running on the Movement to Socialism ticket (LP, April 23, 2001). Morales is best known for his defense of coca-growing farmers, which got him expelled from Congress earlier this year (LP, Feb. 11, 2002). Morales, who is running fourth, could be the spoiler if no one candidate gets a majority, which is the likely scenario.

The country’s National Electoral Court has launched a massive media campaign to attempt to get the more than 4 million voters to the polls, but corruption in the Bánzer-Quiroga administration has turned off many.

There have been six major Cabinet crises since the current government took office in 1993. Seven Cabinet ministers were forced to resign because of corruption charges (LP, Oct. 8, 2001).

Bolivia’s economic situation is not helping much to get voters interested in the campaign. In the past two years, 40 percent of companies in the manufacturing sector have closed and defaults on bank loans have topped 20 percent.

According to the government, 59 percent of the country’s 8.2 million people live in poverty. Pablo Ramos, head of the Economic Research Institute at the San Andrés University in La Paz, said the number of street vendors in the country has risen from 28,000 in 1985 to 1.4 million today.

The campaign, however, has been anything but inexpensive. Five of the candidates, including Paz Zamora and Sánchez de Lozada, have spent more than US$5 million each. The leading candidates have also turned to hostile campaigning to discredit opponents.

Sánchez de Lozada has focused his artillery on Reyes Villa, blaming him for starting the water riots in Cochabamba in April 2000. Several people were killed when residents took to the streets to protest a government plan to privatize the water company (LP, April 24, 2000).

All the candidates harp on Sánchez de Lozada’s personal fortune, labeling him as the richest man in Bolivia. Reyes Villa blames him for giving away strategic companies through privatization.

The one common thread of all the candidates is blaming the opponents for being part of the current crisis, while not offering any plans of substance to deal with the nation’s problems.

They also agree that the crisis is serious for the parties themselves.

"The people have lost faith in politicians, they no longer believe what they say," said MacLean.