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Bolivia's socialists claim victory as unofficial count shows big win
- neves 6y agoWill the Bolivian people now possibly profit from the electric car boom? Or Elon Musk will support another coup?
- kwanbix 6y agoWhat are you talking about? Evo morales presented himself in the elections illegally and then he committed fraud as he was loosing.
- CyanBird 6y agoHe did present himself illegally, but there's no evidence of fraud in the past election, all claims of it come from the now debunked OAS report
- boomboomsubban 6y ago>he committed fraud as he was loosing. This claim has been debunked after the OAS finally released their data set. The original report fucked up the time stamps, which means the "hard-to-explain change in the preliminary results" never actual occurred.
- zpeti 6y agoYeah as is typical throughout history with communist regimes, the people always benefit greatly.
- Retr0 6y ago>Bolivia’s economy has undergone structural economic transformation during Evo Morales’s presidency. Real (inflation-adjusted) per capita GDP grew by more than 50 percent over these past 13 years. This was twice the rate of growth for the Latin American and Caribbean region. Even as the Latin American regional economy slowed over the past five years, Bolivia had the highest growth of per capita GDP in South America. https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-10.pdf https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-1...
- collegecamp293 6y agoBolivia's GDP per capita is still one of the lowest in Latin America. It's also one of the lowest in the world excluding African nations. It's easier to grow when you're very poor.
- socialdemocrat 6y agoIf a capitalist friendly guy had been in charge, you would not have made this point though. When socialists have success people are always eager to find excuses and when capitalism utterly fails like the Russian shock therapy, people line up to make excuses. Can’t we just accept that the devil is in the details. Quality of government matters more than you political ideology, with respect to economic growth.
- aixi 6y agoI lived in South America and the amount of Bolivian emigrants, and people in general who leave the country temporarily to use other countries' resources (collecting welfare from other countries and taking advantage of public healthcare in some other South American countries, particularly Argentina) is enough proof for me that Bolivia is not doing very well, whether it is a socialist state or not.
- christophilus 6y agoNot sure why you’re being downvoted. It’s almost a tautology that it’s easier to double a two dollars than it is to double two trillion. Starting point makes a big difference, and growth alone is not an indication of comparative success.
- CyanBird 6y agoIt will depend on what will the new gov do about the military and police which betrayed the past administration and how many loyal forces as a % of the forces do they have If they decide to purge it will take less time to "recover", if they make a national unity government, then it might take considerably longer
- joejohnson 6y agoA lot of people seem to be missing the reference here. Musk tweeted support for the coup this summer: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/9X7X5Fw https://m.imgur.com/gallery/9X7X5Fw
- macspoofing 6y agoYou think Musk was serious? You sure he wasn't just trolling a responder who came out with a red herring about US coup in Bolivia and accusing Musk of being complicit in it (and you get those guys all the time online. You could be talking about unicorns and they'll just jump in with "Remember that America is evil" bit).
- boomboomsubban 6y ago"Oh he was just joking about the coup that he probably did help cause" isn't much better.
- macspoofing 6y ago>Oh he was just joking about the coup But he wasn't. He was responding, in kind, to a tweet that came out with a red herring about America organizing coup to benefit Musk. And those guys are a dime a dozen online. Their one trick is to always post about how evil America is regardless of context. They are supremely annoying. >probably did help cause Where are you getting that from?
- the_only_law 6y ago> Their one trick is to always post about how evil America is regardless of context. They are supremely annoying. This is a bad faith interpretation of that tweet. They were responding to a tweet about unnecessary government expenditure with an example of another expenditure that (allegedly) Musk supported. You can call it a whataboutism or attack it for a number of other things, but this is an irrelevant strawman.
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- joejohnson 6y agoHere’s a good interview with Morales from last month talking about the coup, the election, and the multinationals that tried to suppress MAS in Bolivia: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/evo-morales-interview-bolivia-mas-election https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/evo-morales-interview-bol...
- JumpCrisscross 6y agoMorales giving an interview to Jacobin Magazine isn’t exactly a neutral source.
- jahaja 6y agoWhere do you imagine left-wing interviews should take place then? The corporate media doesn't seem that interested.
- tecleandor 6y agoI'd say it's almost impossible to make an interview neutral, be it Jacobin Magazine or National Geographic.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoYou are asking someone to give their opinion on matters, there is no attempt to hide the bias.
- CyanBird 6y agoThe US manufacture of consent machinery is not interested on giving voices to enemies of Washington Consensus foreign policy
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoThe parent comment does not claim that it is "neutral", and a politician's opinions are not normally assumed to be "neutral", so I'm not sure why you even raise that as an issue.
- macspoofing 6y agoThe old H.L. Mencken quote applies here: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"
- jacobush 6y agoI think that applies elsewhere too, in fact the world holds its breath right now.
- eznzt 6y agoCocaine smugglers everywhere, rejoice.
- jray 6y agoThe official count: https://computo.oep.org.bo/?fbclid=IwAR1ZEacVZhmfMUUoFPklcIzGlSBUyoG5tb7Yt731MFIp8ZuEOWW7Ex7LNEM https://computo.oep.org.bo/?fbclid=IwAR1ZEacVZhmfMUUoFPklcIz...
- 0x006A 6y agoThe official count has only 15.66% of the votes counted so far.
- muyuu 6y agoYep, right now CC ( @carlosdmesag ) is ahead by a significant margin. It's weird, people are congratulating Arce but in the official recount he's nowhere near winning.
- jacobush 6y agoWon't there be a second run now, where Arce will probably win?
- muyuu 6y agowith ~60% of the recount done, Arce is ahead and almost at 50% he might win outright https://as.com/diarioas/2020/10/20/actualidad/1603185745_540823.html https://as.com/diarioas/2020/10/20/actualidad/1603185745_540...
- jpxw 6y agoA South American country installing a socialist government. What could possibly go wrong?
- jahaja 6y agoUsually US intervention of some kind.
- CyanBird 6y agoYeah, you are right, these people really need to be put in their place for electing a party which gave them ~5%annum gdp growth for the last decade, maybe strong economic sanctions might do the trick..... /s
- lhenault 6y agoI don't know, another CIA backed coup, as some considers South American countries are better ruled by people like Pinochet ?
- collegecamp293 6y agoChile ranks first in Latin America — and 44th among 189 countries — in the United Nations Human Development Index. "The U.N. ranking counts not only economic growth, but also health and education standards." https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article237575534.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/an...
- zorked 6y agoChile hasn't been ruled by Pinochet since 1990, when it scored a 0.7 in the Human Development Index, about the same score as Bolivia today.
- collegecamp293 6y agoThe "CIA backed coup" apparently worked out for the people of Chile.
- aixi 6y agoI think this is good, since the presented candidate is not Evo then there is no breaking of constitutional laws, and therefore his legitimacy as president won't be questioned. Personally it didn't sit right with me that he ran (and won) for president unconstitutionally the last time, because I feel like that just gives the coup-ers some legitimacy, and a president ruling a country for that amount of time is a little bit too Putin-y for me.
- zorked 6y agoFor perspective: Angela Merkel has been in power for longer than Evo Moralez was.
- socialdemocrat 6y agoThat is fully legal and normal in a parliamentary system. In presidential systems, the president is given a lot of power which is why he/she is often term limited.
- aryonoco 6y agoSure, in a coalition with various parties including mostly her biggest rivals, in a federal country where states have a lot of power, with a lot of checks and balances and a very strong constitutional Court which restricts a lot of what governments can do. Let's not compare the state of Germany's democracy and its civil society with Bolivia.
- aixi 6y agoAngela Merkel is not president of Germany. It's funny you mention this since I lived in South America for most of my life and only recently moved to Germany, so I can see the differences in the way things are done over there and over here.
- bildung 6y agoGermany's equivalent to US' or Bolivias president is Merkels position, the chancellor. Germany's president is more like the role of the Queen in the UK.
- satya71 6y agoI do not envy the Bolivian choice: dictator for life or racist coup plotters. Hope this one turns out good.