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