Financial Times Europe - 19.10.2019 - 20.10.2019

19 October/20 October 2019 ★ FTWeekend 3

Life

E

vo Morales polishes off

another strip ofchicharrón

and licks his fingers. Latin

America’s longest-ruling sit-

ting president seems to be

savouringnotjustthemountainofdeep-

fried pork in front of us, eaten in true

campaigntrailstylewithbarehands,but

also the prospect of possible controver-

sial fourth electoral victory on Sunday.

We are sitting at a rusted metal table,

ringfencedbyguards,inaremotevillage

in central Bolivia where the 59-year-old

has just delivered a fieryspeech. As is

usual for these parts,the reception was

warm. “People tell me, ‘Evo, if you do

well,we’lldowell’,”hetellsme.

Everybody, from voters to ministers

to foes, calls him “Evo”. I have been with

himsincedawn,whenhestartedhisday

in thecapital, La Paz. We drove to

nearby El Alto, where he addressed a

group of youngsters from his Movement

for Socialism (MAS) party, before

boarding the presidential jet to fly

200km south-east toOruro. Then it was

on by helicopter to the village of Cara-

collo, where he inaugurated a road and

took the wheel of a Land Cruiser for two

hours to test it himself. When we

stopped at toll booths, he paid with

money from his own pocket. Along the

way, people gifted him ponchos, hats

and garlands of flowers, potatoes and

coca leaves. “Evo no se cansa,” or “Evo

doesn’t get tired,” ran a campaign tune

playingonhiscar’sradio.It’strue.

At almost every stop we made, people

offered us bowls of quinoa with grated

fresh cheese. “Fancy enough for lunch

with a ‘gringo’ newspaper?” Morales

quipped. “Quinoa is good, it will give

you energy.” I wonder whether the peas-

ant president is fully aware of the qui-

noa craze currently sweeping through

thecapitalistUSandEurope.

It is just past 3pm before we finally

stop for lunch, prepared at a campaign

outpost under a blue tarpaulin. As she

sees us coming, a Quechua woman

dressed in a pink apron and a denim

bucket hat pulls a dripping joint of pork

from a deep aluminium pot and puts it

on a plastic platter, excited to be able to

servefoodto“mybrotherpresident”.

“Eat, eat!” says Morales. “Let’s see if

you can keep up, because we have yet

another activity [to come]”. He chuck-

les at my exhaustion and points to the

bleeding blisters on his feet, which have

been exposed for most of the day in the

stinging Andean cold: “I have to wear

sandals because I have been around too

much.” I feel self-conscious in my heavy

Blundstoneboots.

M

orales is used to toiling.

Aged five, he was already

herding llamas on the

chilly plateau in Orinoca,

western Bolivia. He has

beenatrumpetplayer,acocafarmerand

a combative trade unionist. In 2006,

when he took office as Bolivia’s first

indigenous president, it was a historic

moment—inrobesfitforanemperor,he

received the chieftain’s staff in the pre-

IncaruinsofTiwanaku.

As a reporter, I have been following

him ever since. Such has been his influ-

enceaspresidentthatmanypeoplefrom

across the political spectrum describe

him as Bolivia’s equivalent to Turkey’s

MustafaKemalAtaturk—someonewho

“refounded” a nation. Morales is one of

the survivors of Latin America’s “Pink

Tide” of leftwing governments that

dominated the region until five years

ago, and just a few hours in his company

areenoughtoshowthathisinstinctsasa

populist remain sharp. But as he pre-

parestofacethevotersagainonOctober

20, his aura of invincibility is beginning

to fade, and increasing numbers of crit-

ics fear that their country may be tilting

towardsautocracy.

I am keen to find out what has

changed since a conversation we had in

2014, soon after he won his third term,

when he told me that he did not plan to

Itakeanotherbiteofporkandaskhim

about indigenous rights. Morales, an

ethnicAymara,hasgrantedmanyrights

to the Amerindian majority, bringing

stability to a country long ruled by its

white andmestizo nhabitants. Serfdomi

was only abolished in 1945 and until

1952 indigenous people were forbidden

toenterthesquareoutsidethepresiden-

tial palace. “There will be never full

equality but there must be some equal-

ity,”hetellsme.

Yet Morales is far from being a liberal.

Critics say the MAS controls Congress

and a small media empire, and holds

sway over the courts. If he completes

another term, he will have been presi-

dent for 20 years. Maybe that is why he

professes admiration for long-ruling

autocrats and populists, including those

he calls Bolivia’s new “friends” — Rus-

sia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep

Tayyip Erdogan and China’s Xi Jinping.

“Bolivia is not alone,” he says, taking a

sipofpineapplejuice.

It may not be. But critics argue that he

squandered the chance to become an

Andean Nelson Mandela — a national

leader who tried to unify a country

dividedbyracism—turninginsteadinto

a Paul Kagame-like figure, building a

thriving economybut at the expense of

somedemocratic rights. Supporters

counter that he ended five centuries of

oppression against indigenous people.

On the back of high commodity prices,

he instituted public works and cash-

transfer schemes that cutrates of pov-

erty almost in half duringhis time in

office. “Today, we have a state with dig-

nity and identity,” he says. Then why

does he have the right to be president

again? Because “politics is not a profes-

sion,itispassionforthepeople,”hesays.

ThatmayexplainwhyMoralesadmits

to still feeling uncomfortable at sum-

mits.“Itellyou,whentherearesummits

of heads of state, there are preliminary

meetings,wemeetinaroom,somepres-

idents only speak about business, some-

times their own businesses, and not of

their people. It’s odd.”Morales feels his

policiesofredistributionofkeygasreve-

nues and the renationalisation of the

energy industry, among others, are hav-

ing an echo in some corners of today’s

Britain. “We are defending collective,

not individual rights — on that we are

aheadoftheEuropeans,”hesaid.

Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour

leader, has said that one of the countries

he most admires is Bolivia.“He is get-

ting inspiration from our policies, with

theproposednationalisationofrailways

and energy, for example,” Morales says,

laughingasmypenslipsfrommygreasy

fingers. “He will be welcomed here.”

Morales adds that he would be willing to

take Corbyn to Bolivia’s coca-growing

region of the Chapare. “So you can teach

him how to chew coca?” I ask. “That will

be my pleasure — and his.” Later in the

day, Morales teaches me how to prop-

erly chew the “sacred leaves”, neatly

folding a few and placing them between

hislowerteethandcheek.

Our focus is broken by the arrival of

party members including the local

female mayor, wearing the traditional

Andean outfit of bowler hat and flouncy

skirt. It transpires, to my surprise, that

she has been waiting for us at her house

with a feast of deep-friedcuy, or guinea

pig. As we get up from the table, Morales

asks one of his advisers for cash to pay

the cook.Iaskhimtoletmesettlethebill

according to Lunch with the FT custom

—somethinghiscommunicationsminis-

ter had warned me would be hard. “The

Argentine-Gringo wants to pay,doña,”

Morales laughs, and I slip her a Bs100

($14) note. We hurrythrough a crowd of

supporterstothemayor’shouse.

Y

ou wanted to have lunch

with me, now you have to

eat again,” Morales says as

we arrive. Full from thechi-

charrón, I can manage only a

brittledrumstick.Thepresidentdoesn’t

even touch the local delicacy, getting

lost instead in a story about how he

angered Cuba’s Fidel Castro soon after

winning his first election. Before

embarking on a whirlwind tour of Latin

America, Europe, Asia and Africa in his

trademark striped sweater — “the one I

had handy” — he was called by the late

Cuban leader. “Evo, you cannot fly on a

commercial plane, I’ll send you my Rus-

sian-made one,” Castro said. Morales

declined, worried about who would pay

for the fuel. “I couldn’t accept it,” he

said. Then Chávez called to insist, and

heyieldedtohismentors.

Today, he has more than enough

means of transportation to criss-cross

around.“Wearenotacountryofbeggars

any more,” he tells me. His advisers say

that, on average, the president goes to at

least three Bolivian cities, towns or vil-

lages a day. “I feel I haven’t changed. I

continue being with the people here and

there. Although, before, I stayed up late,

dancing, drinking beer, I don’t have the

time now,” he says. (He tells me that

once, as a youngster, hepawned his

trumpet to pay for the beers he drunk

during anight out;as soon as he had

earned some cash he came back for it.)

Withoutbreakingthetradition,then,we

rush to the helicopter to fly toanother

campaign performance. As we jump in,

Moralesrubshisblistersandwinces.

I remember him telling me that poli-

tics was “a science of sacrifice for the

people”. The blisters seem to bear testi-

mony to that. “My great desire”, he

added, was to retire and return to an

areanottoofarfromhereto“remember

everything we had fought for”. I heard

that five years ago. He now adds that he

has yielded to the people’s “request”

that he serve five more years in office. Is

he convinced that the people are still

with him? “I feel that, I could be wrong,

but I am optimistic,” he replies. He may

indeed win again. But his victory on

Sunday is far from assured, the presi-

dency a prize gripped as though with

fingersgreasyfromdeep-friedpork.

Andres Schipani is the FT’s

Brazil correspondent

He dismisses the idea that a

personality cult has grown

up around his presidency.

‘I am still a humble man,

nothing has changed, you

can judge for yourself ’

Is the great survivor of the Latin

American left getting too fond of power?

Over chicharrón and guinea pig, Bolivia’s

first indigenous president talks to

Andres Schipani bout his fight fora

a fourth term, his autocrat ‘friends’

— and why Jeremy Corbyn would be

welcome to chew coca with him

S I P E S I P E , A V I L L AG E

I N T H E A N D E S

Deep-fried pork

with boiled corn

Pineapple juice x2

Total Bs 100 (£11.6)

andama llulla(don’t lie), adding thatin

adulthood he learnt one more:ama

llunk’u don’t be servile). That is proba-(

bly why he slamsopponents as lapdogs

of the “North American empire”. As

always, his face stiffenswhen he speaks

of the US. What does he think ofDonald

Trump?“Heismoreserviletocapitalism

than his predecessors,” Morales says.

“Trumpisharminghispeopleand,more

fundamentally,lifeandmankind.”

As Morales reprimands me for not

eating as much as him, I turn to the

economy, which is at the centre of his

presidential campaign. Despite the

usual problems that accompany long

rule — growing corruption, inner circle

sycophancy, ballooning debts and wid-

ening deficits — it has been reasonably

well managed for much of his time in

office. He understood, unlike Hugo

Chávez in Venezuela or Néstor Kirchner

and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in

Argentina, that healthy growth would

give him valuable autonomy. “Without

being an economist, I have learnt when

to subsidise and when to lift the subsidy.

Wemustalsoknowwhentoregulatethe

priceonbasicservicessuchaswaterand

telecommunications.Thatiswhyweare

doingbetterthanourneighbours.”

The criticism is aimed not only at his

Venezuelan socialist ally Nicolás

Maduro but also at the free-marketeer

Mauricio Macri in Argentina, with

whom Morales gets along well “despite

ideological differences”.Macri is wres-

tling with the familiar enemies of his

country’s economy — devaluation and

inflation — and may lose in elections on

October 27. I tell Morales I was born in

Buenos Aires, home to tens of thou-

sands of Bolivian migrants. He laughs,

saying many are coming back to

Bolivia. Indigenous Bolivia has long

been associated with poverty by

Europe-centric Argentines. But the tide

has turned, Morales says, and “we are

doingbetterthanthemnow”.

He is more isolated today than when

he was being embraced by the likes of

Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and

Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. Yet he senses

an opportunity in the humiliation of a

market-friendly government next door

and is waiting for the return of socialist

allies in Argentina. His recipe for win-

ning so many elections? “The economy

comes first. Governments need to bal-

ance growth without neglecting the

socialandpublicinvestments,”hesays.

Lunch with the FT vo MoralesE

‘We are not a country

of beggars any more’

find a way around constitutionallimits

to seek a fourth. Instead, he said, he

would devote his time to his two pas-

sions outside politics, playing football

and farming coca — cocaine’s raw mate-

rial, but a mild and traditional Andean

stimulant in its unprocessed form.

Three years later, during an official visit

by Equatorial Guinea’s ageing strong-

man Teodoro Obiang, it was reported in

localmediathatMoralesaskedthecoup

leader turned four-decade president

how to win elections with 90 per cent of

the vote. “What did he tell you?” I ask.

Morales deflects deftly: “I remember

the question,” he says. “I don’t remem-

bertheanswer.”

We attack the pork — crispy on the

outside,tenderontheinside,greasyand

tasty throughout — and sip pineapple

juice from big plastic cups. Behind us,

supporters are chanting “Evo Forever!”

It is a reference to the constitutional dis-

pute in 2016, when Morales narrowly

lost a referendum to allow him to stand

for a fourth time. Undeterred, however,

his party argued that term limits vio-

lated the American Convention on

Human Rights. Bolivia’s constitutional

court agreed. Many Bolivian voters,

understandably, now feel cheated. Does

hefeelitislegitimatetorunagain?“This

was not an invention of Bolivia, nor an

inventionofEvo,”hereplies.

Although Morales tells me he is run-

ning again because it is a “request from

the Bolivian people”, an increasing

number of Bolivians do not want him in

office for five more years. The latest

polls suggest that he is ahead of his clos-

est contender, yet it is unclear whether

the margin will be large enough to pre-

vent a run-off in December. Critics

argue that his ego is becoming out of

control — reflected in the construction

of a new 25-storey presidential palace in

La Paz and a museum in his birthplace

tohonourhim.Buthedismissestheidea

that a cult of personality has grown up

aroundhispresidency.“Iamstillahum-

ble man, nothing has changed, you can

judgeforyourself,”hesays.

I

n 1994, while head of the coca leaf

growers’ union, Morales was

arrested by US-trained anti-drug

agents. “F***ing Indian,” they

yelled while beating him up. He

once told me that, as a child, he learnt

three basic Andean rules of life:ama sua

(don’t steal),ama quella(don’t be lazy)

Ciaran Murphy

OCTOBER 19 2019 Section:Weekend Time: 10/201917/ - 18:02 User:paul.gould Page Name:WKD3, Part,Page,Edition:WKD, 3, 1