BOLIVIAN VOTE PUTS DENT IN US CLOUT

Candidate Could Hurt Anti-Cocaine Efforts

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - The unexpectedly strong showing of radical Indian
agitator Evo Morales in Bolivian elections promises to deal a serious blow
to the Andean nation's successful U.S.-backed efforts to halt cocaine
production.

Morales, an Aymara Indian, campaigned on an anti-United States platform and
the promise to reverse Bolivia's efforts to eradicate coca, the plant from
which cocaine is made.

Preliminary returns from Sunday's presidential election, announced Monday,
showed Morales battling for third place in the presidential race, with
about 17 percent of the vote. Because the presidential voting determines
the award of Senate seats under Bolivian law, that strong finish will give
his Movement to Socialism party as many as six seats in Bolivia's 27-member
Senate. That in turn will put him in strong position to thwart new
legislation to punish those who grow the coca bush.

Support for Morales surged following comments from the U.S. ambassador
effectively warning voters away from Morales.

Morales trailed leaders Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Manfred Reyes Villa
by less than five percentage points and declared his strong showing ``a
moral victory.''

Interviewed in the capital of La Paz days before the election, Bolivian
anti-drug czar Oswaldo Antezana told Knight Ridder that Morales ``could
undo everything we have done.'' Bolivia has eradicated more than 90,000
acres of coca cultivation since 1998 and taken more than 230 tons of
cocaine out of the global illicit drug market.

Even if traditional parties joined to outvote Morales on future drug
legislation, they would do so at their own peril. Morales' strong showing
among Indian and mixed-race Bolivians, who are the majority in the nation
of 8.3 million, ensures politicians may think twice before espousing new
open-market reforms or penalizing the transport and possession of coca
leaves as the United States advocates.

Morales, 42, showed how unpopular the coca eradication policies are among
the poor, who are a majority of the electorate and who have not felt any
benefit from U.S.-backed economic reforms. Morales adroitly reminded
citizens in South America's poorest economy that the United States failed
to reward anti-coca efforts with open markets for textiles and farm products.

Just a week before Sunday's vote, Morales was stuck in the 10-percent range
in opinion polls. But U.S. Ambassador V. Manuel Rocha gave him a huge boost
with ill-timed comments last Wednesday.

``As a representative of the United States, I want to remind the Bolivian
electorate that if you elect those who want Bolivia to become a major
cocaine exporter again, this will endanger the future of U.S. assistance to
Bolivia,'' Rocha said in a widely condemned speech.

Bolivians of all political stripes decried as unacceptable U.S. threats in
the middle of a Bolivian election campaign. The comments apparently pushed
undecided voters into the camp of Morales, who dubbed Rocha his ``campaign
chief.'' The U.S. Embassy in Bolivia had no comment Monday.

Bolivia once led the world in coca cultivation and cocaine trafficking. In
1998, it launched Plan Dignity, which has resulted in the eradication of at
least 85 percent of the coca, which is used by the nation's Indians for
medicinal purposes. Most of the eradicated coca was grown in the Chapare, a
New Jersey-sized tropical region that is the hotbed of support for Morales
and was home to much of Bolivia's drug trafficking.

Coca is not native to the Chapare, and the coca bush grown there is too
bitter for teas or chewing. Most is geared specifically to the illegal drug
trade. The United States and Europe have spent millions on helping Chapare
farmers grow alternative crops, but results have been mixed.

Morales will also be influential in a planned special session of Congress
designed to amend Bolivia's constitution. Native Bolivians want an article
amended to explicitly grant them greater participation in government and
clearer land rights. Partly at stake in the upcoming battle is whether the
state or Indians should be the owners of the gold, silver and natural gas
deposits beneath Bolivian soil.

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