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This post has nothing to do with sea issue betweeen Chile and Bolivia (and Peru if all actors considered). Rather than that, I wanted to depict the current political situation (as perceived by me), I like analogies, having said that, I think of Bolivia as a ship that has survived a storm.
Bolivia had a captain that fell (was thrown?) to the sea and following that confusion a brilliant passenger took command. This commander has a very good attitude and lot's of practical knowledge on everything but ships, seas and cartography.
The crew has no respect towards the new captain and no will to help. The rest of the passengers have no respect either of the crew nor the captain, and they are not aware that they have miraculously survived a storm and that if they don't help to reach a safe port soon the whole ship will collapse.
In the meantime there are lots of discussion inside the ship while it drifts in no direction, if we are hit by another storm, will it be ladies and children first?. Bolivia is wasting precious time discussing and revising laws that should pass right away; I think the cost of opportunity of delays is way higher than expecting perfect foolproof plans from the executive. Everytime something is revised or modified because of "public pressure" (I think most of the time is "private pressure" from small sectors) the executive looses the small bits of credibility and authority inherited from October.
I think that we are all in the same ship, extra time for discussion is over, we have to navigate towards one direction, even if we are uncertain of the rightfulness of the chosen direction. We all have to cooperate in order to navigate in one direction; it is much better than drifting away!. Passengers, wake up, smell the coffee, and go pay taxes!!.
I'll spare you from posting my cheesy "too much salt" comment again. I swear it didn't seem so bad at the time.
I would be interested in seeing how Mesa's support is broken down among the Departments, urban/rural, age groups, etc. I think most in my family and friends circle (mostly middle class) are very supportive of Mesa. Many voted for Goni only because of his affiliation with Mesa.
Posted by eduardo | March 17, 2004 06:18 PMDeveloping countries have problems with such data, Bolivia is no exception, nevertheless I read an article in Bolpress that stated that a survey (survey??, pure result, no error margin, undefined size and geographical scope of the sample) conducted by the Universidad San Francisco de Asís (only has presence in La Paz) showed that Mesa had at its peak of support 80%, which is very high; it also said that now it's lower. I doubt of such results, eventhough I believe he has, so far, important support mainly from La Paz residents.
I can tell you that the highest support is in La Paz, the lowest is probably in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando. I think, based on my experience (talking with all kinds of people), that mostly young lower middle-class people like Mesa. Upper class and middle class had their votes defined based on their favorite parties (Mesa had no effect on their decission), and lower classes are driven mostly by campaigns I don't really think Mesa played an important role either. Mesa played an important role in supporting an image of fresh clean politicans that tried to appeal only to potato coachs in La Paz that knew him and liked him (some people really like him, some people really hate him).
Sorry, no scientific data available.
Posted by Daniel | March 18, 2004 07:24 AMhttps://livinginlatinamerica.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/190
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