For the traveler returning to Bolivia after several years, walking slowly down the steep streets of La Paz, a city perched among sheer cliffs at an altitude of almost 4,000 meters, the changes are obvious. People are no longer begging, nor are there street vendors swarming the sidewalks. It is evident that there is full employment. People are better dressed, they seem healthier. And the overall look of the capital is more meticulous, cleaner, greener and landscaped. The construction boom is apparent. Dozens of striking tall buildings have risen up and modern shopping malls have multiplied, one of which has the largest cinema complex (18 rooms) in South America.
But the most impressive change is the marvelous urban cable cars using futuristic technology that dance like a permanent ballet of colorful cabins above the city, elegant and celestial, like soap bubbles. Silent and non-polluting. There are already two lines in operation, red and yellow. The third, the green line, will open in the coming weeks, creating a 11 kilometer interconnected network of cableway transport, the longest in the world, which will allow tens of thousands of La Paz residents to save an average of two hours of traveling time per day.
"Bolivia is changing. Evo keeps his promises," some posters on the street announce. And everything confirms it. It really is another country. Very different from just a decade ago, when it was considered "the poorest in Latin America after Haiti." The country’s mostly corrupt and authoritarian rulers spent their lives begging for loans from international financial institutions, major western powers, or global humanitarian organizations. Meanwhile large foreign mining companies exploited the subsoil, paying miserable royalties to the State and prolonging the colonial plunder.
A relatively sparsely populated country (some 10 million inhabitants), Bolivia has a territory of over one million square kilometers (twice the size of France). Its inner depths are filled with riches: silver (think Potosí ...), gold, tin, iron, copper, zinc, tungsten, manganese, etc. El Salar de Uyuni is the largest reserve of potassium and lithium in the world, the latter considered the energy of the future. But the main source of income today is the hydrocarbon sector, with the second largest natural gas reserves in South America, as well as oil, though in lesser quantities (about 16 million barrels per year).
Bolivia's economic growth over the last nine years, since Evo Morales came to power, has been sensational, at an average rate of 5% per year. In 2013, GDP growth reached 6.8%, and in 2014 and 2015, according to IMF forecasts, it will once again be more than 5%, the highest rate in Latin America. And all this with a moderate and controlled rate of inflation, below 6%.
The overall standard of living has doubled. Public spending, despite significant social investments, is also controlled, to the extent that the public budget is showing a fiscal surplus of 2.6% (in 2014).
And while exports, mainly hydrocarbons and mining products, play an important role in this economic boom, it is domestic demand (+5.4%) that constitutes the main engine of growth. Yet another unprecedented success of Economy Minister Luis Arce: Bolivia’s foreign-exchange reserves, relative to GDP, reached 47%, putting this country, for the first time, at the top of Latin America, well ahead of Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.
Evo Morales has indicated that, having once been a structurally indebted country, Bolivia could now become a lender, and he has revealed that "four States in the region," without specifying which ones, have already turned to his government requesting credit...
In a country where more than half of the population is indigenous, Evo Morales is the first indigenous person, in the last five centuries, to have reached the presidency of the State, in January 2006. And since taking office, this singular president has dismissed the "neoliberal model" and exchanged it for a new "economic, social and communitarian productive model."
Morales nationalized, as of May 2006, the strategic sectors (oil, mining, electricity, environmental resources), generating surpluses and investing a portion in job-creating sectors (industry, manufacturing, crafts, transportation, agricultural development, housing, commerce, etc.). He devoted another portion of these surpluses to reducing poverty through social policies (education, health), wage increases (for civil servants and public sector workers), incentives for social inclusion (Juancito Pinto Bonus, Dignity Pension, Juana Azurduy Bonus) and subsidies.
The results of applying this model are reflected not only in the figures presented above, but in one very clear fact: more than a million Bolivians (i.e. 10% of the population) have escaped poverty. Public debt, which represented 80% of GDP, fell to just 33% of GDP. The unemployment rate (3.2%) is the lowest in Latin America, such that thousands of Bolivian immigrants in Spain, Argentina and Chile have begun to return to the country, attracted by employment opportunities and a substantial increase in living standards.
Evo Morales has also undertaken the construction of a genuine State, hitherto basically virtual. Admittedly, the vast and tortured Bolivian geography (a third of which is high Andean mountains, another two thirds tropical and Amazonian lowlands) and the cultural divide (36 ethno-linguistic groups) never provided for integration and unification. However, President Morales is determined to carry out that which was not done in almost two centuries - to put an end to the divisions. First, by enacting a new constitution, adopted by referendum, which established for the first time a "plurinational state," recognizing the rights of the different peoples who live in Bolivia. And then launching a series of ambitious public works (roads, bridges, tunnels) in order to connect, coordinate and intercommunicate dispersed regions, to ensure that each of its inhabitants feel like they are part of a common whole: Bolivia. This had never been done before. And for this reason, there were so many attempts at secession, separatism and division.
Today, with all these accomplishments, Bolivians feel - perhaps for the first time - proud of themselves. Proud of their indigenous culture and their native languages. Proud of their currency, every day valued more against the dollar. Proud to have the highest economic growth and largest currency reserves in Latin America.
Proud of their technological achievements such as the state-of-the-art network of cable cars, or the Túpac Katari telecommunications satellite, or their public television channel, Bolivia TV. On October 12, the day of the presidential elections, this channel, run by Gustavo Portocarrero, offered a striking demonstration of its technological expertise – broadcasting live for over 24 hours with special correspondents in some 40 cities around the world (Japan, China, Russia, India, Iran, Egypt, Spain, etc.) in which Bolivians living abroad voted for the first time. A technical and human feat that few TV channels in the world would be able to perform.
All these economic, social and technological accomplishments partly explain the resounding victory of Evo Morales and his party (Movement Toward Socialism, MAS) in the elections last October 12.
An icon of the struggle of indigenous and native peoples worldwide, Evo has managed, with this new triumph, to break with several serious prejudices. He has shown that his government has not been worn down, and that when you govern well, even after nine years in power, you can win comfortably again.
He demonstrates, contrary to the assertions of racists and colonialists, that "the Indians" know very well how to govern, even becoming the best rulers that the country has ever had. He demonstrates that without corruption, but with honesty and efficiency, the State can be an excellent administrator, and not - as claimed by the neoliberals – a systematic calamity. Finally, he demonstrates that the left in power can be efficient, that they can implement policies of inclusion and redistribution of wealth without compromising economic stability.
But this great election victory can also be explained politically. President Evo Morales was able to ideologically defeat his main opponents, regrouped within the business caste of the province of Santa Cruz, the main economic engine of the country. This conservative group which has tried everything against the president, from attempted succession to a coup, has finally surrendered and ultimately joined the presidential project, recognizing that the country has set sail towards development.
Bolivia is changing. It’s on the up. And its prodigious metamorphosis has not yet ceased to surprise the world. (Excerpts from Le Monde Diplomatique)
