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Introduction Bolivia under Morales

2010; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 37; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0094582x10370172

1552-678X

Benjamin G. Kohl, Rosalind Bresnahan,

Populism, Right-Wing Movements

On January 22,2010, Evo Morales began his second term in office as the first president eligible to serve consecutive terms under the new constitution approved in a 2009 referendum. His first electoral victory in 2005 had made him Bolivia's first president and represented a watershed in Bolivian politics, ending a peculiar form of Andean apartheid. Even though the majority people1?who are estimated to account for from 60 to 70 percent of the country's population?had finally gained the right to vote after the 1952 Revolution, they were still socially and culturally subordinate and largely excluded from formal participation in government. As discussed by Postero (2010) in the previous issue, Morales's Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism?MAS) merged activism with opposition to neoliberalism from socialist and populist sectors in support of an indigenous nationalist agenda advocating rights and eco nomic and popular democracy. Having spent much of his first term consolidating political power, Morales entered office in 2010 controlling the majority of the new Plurinational Legislative Assembly This issue, the second to examine Bolivia under Morales, analyzes the country's historic struggle focusing on the new phase heralded by his inauguration in 2006.2 Dominant classes do not give up privi lege without a fight, and Morales's first term was marked by their struggle to maintain their power. Opposition came largely from the old dominant politi cal classes represented by conservatives centered in the Media Luna (Half Moon), the country's four eastern departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando (Figure 1).