Credit:Wayne McLean

The controversial president marks his first anniversary in office.

Gabriela Perdomo - It has been 12 months since Evo Morales, the first indigenous person to ever be elected to the presidency of a country in the Americas, took his oath in Bolivia. The once coca-leaf farmer and union leader has set a new path for the Andean nation, where two thirds of the population are of direct indigenous descent.

In December 2005, Morales and his Movement to Socialism (MAS) won the presidential election with 53.72 per cent of the vote. Last January, he officially proclaimed he would "re-found" South America's poorest nation and would "give back" the indigenous population "what had been taken away from it." By that, Morales meant natural resources, land and political power which, according to MAS, had been until then in the hands of a few wealthy families of mixed and Spanish descent.

Morales has delivered in most of his electoral promises but his leadership has been controversial and now he faces growing dissent. Last May, the president nationalized the hydrocarbon industry. He did so by taking control of oil and gas fields with the help of the military and delivering speeches against foreign investors. Little by little, Morales and his team toned down their remarks and finally got away with increasing taxes and revenues for the country.

The "semi-nationalization" was regarded as successful; all foreign companies stayed, and Morales' popularity surged. This year, the turn will be for the large mining industry. Mining vice-minister Luis Alberto Ichazu revealed this month that the government will increase taxes on foreign mining companies and fund new state-owned projects to develop a national industry. By the end of 2007, Morales expects to have gained $250 million U.S. in tax revenue from foreign mining enterprises—five times more than what Bolivia got last year.

The nationalization strategy, which many experts believe has been backed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, a friend of Morales, has worked for now. International companies stayed, but mainly because they cannot afford to leave. Bolivia holds South America's second largest gas reserves after Venezuela; and Brazil, the biggest investor, heavily relies—along with Argentina—on Bolivia's gas supplies. Still, some warn Morales' rhetoric could backfire and future investors might think twice before entering Bolivia next time, which could affect the country's economy in the long run.

Land and political power are much more complicated issues, to the point where Bolivia might be facing a real threat of falling apart as a nation. Morales has vowed to distribute over 200,000 kilometres of land to impoverished peasants, some of which is "unproductive" terrain currently owned by farmers. The measure was approved by Congress late last year amidst great pressure from thousands of people supporting it who took to the streets of La Paz, led by Morales himself. Landowners, concentrated mostly in the eastern regions, oppose the law. The government is now working to create a legal body that will oversee the reform, which undoubtedly will bring conflict. Both sides have threatened to use force.

Morales has yet to deliver on his promise of "re-founding" the nation. A Constituent Assembly of elected members has been sitting since last August with the task of rewriting the country's Constitution. They have a year to finish, but until now little has been achieved. The MAS and the leading opposition party, We Can (Podemos), have failed to agree on the terms upon which each article should be approved. MAS wants everything to be approved by simple majority—50 per cent plus one—which would allow the party to pass articles with no need of compromising with other parties. We Can refuses to accept what they call a "trick" to bypass the opposition on key issues such as regional autonomy, nationalization and land issues. According to current regulations, articles should be approved by two-thirds of the Constituent Assembly.

The latest development of this standoff that has delayed the process of actually writing the new charter was the government's compromise to vote everything by a two-thirds majority, but only until Jul. 2. If the draft is not ready by then, then the simple majority rule will kick in. The opposition believes MAS members could simply sabotage the voting sessions until then.

In one year, Bolivia has seen protests, violence and an increasing tension between Morales' supporters and opponents. The country is polarized and the threat of a major clash between the east and the west, "the rich" and "the poor", is growing. Both sides are becoming more and more radical and less inclined to listen to the other one. A recent push for autonomy in some regions, precisely the ones holding most of Bolivia's natural resources and exporting agricultural businesses, caused major turmoil in Cochabamba last week.

The government and Morales do little to appease such threat. Morales' style is erratic and shows his and his aides' inexperience in a position of power. Regardless of his good intentions, his desperate measures and impatient ways can harm Bolivians a lot more than anyone could have fathomed. The president has made an obvious effort to change his politics of resentment for a more moderate and conciliatory strategy. He might succeed in turning Bolivia into a more just and prosperous nation. But Morales walks on the thin line of a passionate populism that can result in his downfall or, even worse, Bolivia's.

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