Bolivian Deadlock Remains as President, Foes Are Returned to Office

Dinocio Coronel Aymar considers his vote in Walata Chico. Bolivians were voting whether to keep President Evo Morales and other officials in office. (By Juan Karita -- Associated Press)

In the sprawling mud-and-brick city of El Alto, on a plateau above La Paz, pro-government posters and graffiti testify to Morales's enduring popularity. Thousands of rural migrants, many of them of Aymara and Quechua descent, have fueled the rapid growth of this city. Many regard the president as the rare leader who has concerned himself with helping the indigenous poor.

"All of us that are here came out to support him. He is changing this country in a way that no other president has before," said Isabel Quispe, 39, who sat at a wooden table in the concrete courtyard of a one-story, mustard-yellow school in the San Roque neighborhood of El Alto. "Other presidents put money in their pockets and gave none of it to us."

In this courtyard, many women wore bowler hats, shawls and flared skirts -- traditional dress for the Bolivian highlands. Quispe, who cradled her crying 2-year-old son on her lap, works in a small school-supplies shop in El Alto. Under the Morales administration, she receives a $30 payment for her school-age son, contingent upon school attendance. Quispe said the cash-transfer program, one of two popular with the lower classes (the other aids elderly people), "saves me. We are always short of money, and this helps us very much."

Far down the mountains, in the wealthier neighborhood of San Miguel in southern La Paz, the contrasts to El Alto were stark. Instead of trash and dirt lots, voters walked to the polls with their dogs past chic cafes and BMW and Mercedes-Benz dealerships. Here, many voters think that Morales does not represent their community, that he is leading the country down a dangerous socialist path towards economic stagnation.

"I voted for him in 2005 because of my hopes for change. But he hasn't shown himself capable of managing the country," said Gabriel Barrero, 21, a industrial engineering student at a military college in La Paz. "He has created a lot of division between whites and Indians, between rich and poor. He arrived with good intentions. But he hasn't been able to show concrete improvements. For that reason, I'm now voting for him to go away."

Barrero describes himself as mestizo and middle class. He does not receive any government payments and is increasingly concerned about growing inflation. The Bolivian government has increased its revenue by renegotiating contracts with foreign oil and gas companies, but Barrero thinks this should be invested in private enterprise and not in handouts to the poor.

"I feel things have gotten worse," he said. "I am not the only one. Half of the students from my high school class have left the country, and the other half wants to leave. There isn't any sense of security that this country is developing."