BOLIVIA: WHO CAN CHALLENGE MORALES? (PT 1)

C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 000436 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/20/2019 TAGS: PGOV KDEM PREL PINR ENVR BL ECON SUBJECT: BOLIVIA: WHO CAN CHALLENGE MORALES? (PT 1) Classified By: CDA Chris Lambert for reasons 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Although presidential elections will not occur until December 6, at least ten members of the opposition are being mentioned as potential candidates. This is the first in a series of cables that will review the possibilities for each. Part One will focus on the three leading candidates: former Vice President Victor Hugo Cardenas, Potosi Mayor Rene Joaquino, and entrepreneur Samuel Doria Medina. All of the candidates have significant electoral drawbacks. End summary. - - - - - - - - - - Victor Hugo Cardenas - - - - - - - - - - ¶2. (C) Former Vice President Victor Hugo Cardenas is running as the "unity" candidate, arguing he is the only person who can bring together the east and the west of the country. In his appearances, he regularly skewers President Morales and his ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, rejecting the new constitution and criticizing the "MAS revolution" as divisive and demagogic. Cardenas bases his support on his high level of name recognition, ostensibly high levels of support in Santa Cruz, his pledge to unite all Bolivians as equals, and his ability to speak Aymara and Quechua fluently and Guarani passably well. Cardenas campaign insiders tell us they have devised a plan based on focus groups and advice from polling guru Stanley Greenberg to launch extensive radio campaigns in all three languages and openly challenge Morales to debate Cardenas in either Aymara or Quechua. Since Morales speaks only Spanish, Cardenas' team believes they can expose Morales as a "fake indigenous," and then pile on with charges of corruption, economic mismanagement, and divisive rhetoric. Cardenas and his backers cite private polls showing Morales' support softening to as low as 35 percent in the main cities, with Cardenas the leading challenger at up to twenty percent nationally and 27 percent in the capital cities (and "surging"). ¶3. (C) Outside of Cardenas' inside circle, the news is quite different. Cardenas' opponents regularly cite his reputation as a "Gonista" who betrayed his Lake Titicaca roots and sold the country's patrimony to the lowest bidder. Although Cardenas served as vice president only once, in Sanchez de Lozada's first term, he is often incorrectly associated with Sanchez de Lozada's role in the Gas Wars and his poorly-remembered capitalization programs. The recent takeover of Cardenas' property by his own community, whether instigated by MAS agitators or others, has only underlined the message of Cardenas as a "traitor to his people." A recent Ipsos poll contained a very different message from Cardenas' numbers, showing any number of other potential candidates with higher levels of popularity and name recognition. ¶4. (C) Comment: While reliable polling numbers are hard to come by and privately-commissioned polls sometimes suspect, Cardenas' campaign insiders are privately high on his prospects. They dismiss Bolivian polls, and stress the Greenberg-led poll-based strategy they are developing. In a meeting with Charge, Cardenas unsurprisingly laughed off the idea that he is in any way a "traitor" to his community, and his team members have said they are ready to take this charge head-on in a blitz of public appearances and radio campaigns. Cardenas told Charge how his father changed his surname from Choquehuanca (same as Foreign Minister and cousin David Choquehuanca) when he was a boy in order to avoid racism in the schooling system. He previewed other messages stressing his indigenous bona fides as well. Last, Cardenas, like other candidates, stresses the need to have a "united front" against Morales, so as not to fracture the opposition vote, but he believes this process will happen naturally once polling numbers settle and Santa Cruz leaders commit to one candidate. In meetings with Santa Cruz business and political leaders, Embassy officers have heard Cardenas merits serious consideration. A source from Cardenas' team tells us this financial commitment could come as early as April. End comment. - - - - - - - Rene Joaquino - - - - - - - ¶5. (C) Potosi Mayor Rene Joaquino styles himself as the only "new" leader in the race, and as a moderate-left indigenous alternative to Morales. Joaquino is the leader of the Social Alliance (AS) party that has regional prominence in the Potosi department. He is advised by Filemon Escobar, one of the founders of the MAS party, who later split with Morales over charges the MAS had betrayed its indigenous beginnings in favor of a Cuban-style classist revolution. Escobar and Joaquino are now pushing a "softer" version of the original indigenous-centric MAS agenda, which valorizes indigenous ideology as the basis of Bolivian identity but is careful to stress overall unity as well. In a February 19 meeting with Charge, Joaquino predicted a dramatically worsening economy and corruption were two issues that would sink the MAS, as campesinos come to understand that Morales does not really offer change, only "more of the same." As an example, he cited Potosi's famous "Cerro Rico" mine, where he said up to 60,000 people used to be employed and now only 10,000 have work. He also noted that Morales' recent cabinet "shake up" resulted in little indigenous representation and said campesinos everywhere were beginning to see Morales was not "their representative." He placed great stock in the recent Santos Ramirez corruption scandal, and said awareness of corruption would make it harder for the MAS to continue its "control" of the campo through graft and pressure tactics. Joaquino said he has "done things the right way, unlike Santos Ramirez," and said he has long been known for his stand against corruption. ¶6. (C) In his meeting with Charge, Joaquino was quick to address his perceived shortcomings. Joaquino admitted his party was low on funding and still perceived only as a regional player, but said it was rapidly gaining national recognition due to its "moral authority." He said he surprised everyone in 1993 when he won the Potosi mayor race with hardly a peso to his name, and said one should not underestimate the desire for change and new leadership in the country. Joaquino noted anecdotally that wherever he went, people "came out to meet" him and "were excited to see" the AS party flag. Last, he said he did not need to win La Paz department; he needs only to lower the MAS percentage from 80 percent to 60 or 70 percent and do well in the rest of the country. "I like to fight," he promised. ¶7. (C) Comment: Despite his promise to 'shock the world' in December, Joaquino faces an uphill battle. When his AS party participated in the 2008 Chuquisaca prefect race, they garnered only four percent of the vote, which most pundits viewed as confirmation of his party's limited stature outside Potosi state. Against the MAS, any candidate will need a large war chest of funding, and Joaquino does not appear to have this kind of financial backing. Still, contacts generally agree with his analysis that the country is looking for new leadership. Joaquino may be accurate in his judgment that the only way to win is to field an indigenous-led, centrist party that can take away some MAS support while bringing along the rest of the country, but the AS party has not impressed at a national level. In addition, Joaquino, while indigenous, has little popularity in El Alto and much of La Paz because of his support to move the capital to Sucre. Last, his partnership with Escobar will drive away eastern voters, especially in Santa Cruz, where Escobar is widely and distastefully remembered as engineering Morales' rise to power. End comment. - - - - - - - - - - Samuel Doria Medina - - - - - - - - - - ¶8. (C) In a March 10 meeting with Charge, Samuel Doria Medina, head of the moderate UN party and so-called "richest man in Bolivia," said he was the only candidate with a national-level operation and that his economic reputation would be the difference in the race. "Today," he said, "the economy and national unity are the two issues. Because of this, we have an interesting advantage." Doria Medina rattled off several reasons for a coming economic crash and centered on the importance of "confidence" in both politics and economics. He discussed a number of ways the Bolivian economy could falter, ranging from a drop in natural gas demand to government cash-flow problems that could lead to difficulty in maintaining popular "bono" or entitlement payments. Economically, he said, Morales was not taking note of how the global economic crisis was hurting El Alto. Saying "Altenos are pragmatic people," he foresaw a potential political crisis of confidence that could lead to a "chain reaction" against Morales. Doria Medina noted his prior presidential run and how his UN party was "five years in the making." He also cited polling showing sixty percent of the country to be either disaffected or non-aligned, and argued these voters were up for the taking. ¶9. (C) Regarding Cardenas, Doria Medina's staffers said he did not know to what degree the MAS controlled the community takeover of his property, but that any benefit that accrued to Cardenas from this action was fine with the MAS. He said the MAS was ready to portray Cardenas as "the traitor Indian, or the permitted Indian" and Morales as "the savior Indian, or the rebel Indian" (i.e. against the hegemonic U.S.). Doria Medina said Cardenas would be the MAS' preferred opponent, and as such would be a grave mistake. He echoed Cardenas when he said financial commitments would make the difference in deciding which candidates stayed and which dropped out of the race. Exuding confidence, Doria Medina said his Santa Cruz financial contacts were "very straightforward" and that they would make a commitment collectively in August. After this, he said, it would be a much smaller "race to the finish." ¶10. (C) Comment: While Doria Medina cites his economic reputation and his party's organizational capabilities, others discuss his low polling numbers and an apparent lack of charisma. Cardenas laughingly called Doria Medina "a leader of cement," referring more to his notorious lack of charisma than his successful cement business. Virtually all of our sources agree that Doria Medina would be well-suited as finance minister, but no one has suggested he could win the presidency. In addition, the UN party is not united; party number two Peter Maldonado has had a significant falling out with the party chief, and he has told us Doria Medina has "alienated" almost half of the party leadership. When told Doria Medina said Santa Cruz financial backers would make a decision in August, Cardenas' campaign advisor laughed and told Poloff, "Yes, that's what they told him, but really they'll make their decision in April, and not for him." Last, Doria Medina is not indigenous and cannot compete with Cardenas and Joaquino in this regard. End comment. - - - - - - - - The Bottom Line - - - - - - - - ¶11. (C) Comment: In meetings with Charge, each of the three discussed their winning formula and the failures of the other two. Unfortunately, while some of their claims may be inflated, their criticisms of their rivals were generally on the mark. Cardenas is seen as the darling of the eastern states, but despite his aggressive campaign plans, common wisdom holds him to be "Goni's servant" or at least part of the past. Joaquino is widely appreciated as a good mayor, but lacks national recognition. Many consider him a potential candidate for 2015. Doria Medina, while respected for his economic acumen, may be presiding over a crumbling party and an inflated sense of national support. Of the three, only Cardenas seems to have at least the makings of a plan to combat his perceived disadvantages, while Joaquino and Doria Medina have yet to advance beyond rhetoric. End comment. LAMBERT