Bush's Nightmare : Indigenous Leftist Leads Bolivian Presidential Polls

Reuters AlertNet - Bush's Nightmare : Indigenous Leftist Leads Bolivian Presidential Polls

Opinion polls show Evo Morales, a leftist Congressman and former coca farmer, leading all other candidates in proposed Bolivian Presidential elections. The polls show support not just among poorer classes, but also growing within the middle class.

Morales has proposed nationalizing the oil and natural gas industries, as well as industries based on other natural resources, and tightly regulating Bolivia's--until now--free-market economic policies.

I have contended that the new leftist face of Lating America--Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela--constitute (in the eyes of the Bush administration) a "New Axis of Evil" ^TM and that we are likely to begin to see an active campaign to paint these "social democracies" as "communist" or "terrorist."

And--in no way connected, I'm sure, to this story--we now learn the elections have been postponed. The largely right-wing state of Santa Cruz, seeking to gain more electoral votes (think Tom DeLay in Texas, or Arnold Schwarznegger in California) has forced a postponement of the scheduled December 4 Presidential Election. This could mean trouble.