Evo Morales's Exit A Blow To Left-Wing Resurgence In Region
NOBILO: Bolivia's Former President is now in Mexico where he's been granted political asylum. Evo Morales arrived in the capital early - after fleeing his home country. He thanked Mexico's President "Saving his life".</s>EVO MORALES, FORMER BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT: We are here safe thanks to Mexico and its authorities but I also want to tell you, sisters and brothers, as long as I'm alive we will continue in politics. As long as I'm alive, the fight continues and we are sure that the people of the world can liberate themselves.</s>NOBILO: Morales abruptly resigned as Bolivia's President on Sunday after pressure from weeks of protests over disputed election results. This photo that you are about see shows him on board the flight to Mexico holding the Mexican flag. Morales claims that he was forced out in a coup but the country's opposition denies that describing it instead there is a fight for democracy and peace. Bolivia's Former Leader shared this image of himself, sleeping on the floor. It was taken during his last night in his home country before fleeing to Mexico. Bolivian lawmakers are meeting tonight to try and work out a way forward. The - likely to become the next President says Morales fled the country voluntarily. Bolivia is not the only country in the region that's been experiencing significant political unrest. Right now, protests in Chile against President Sebastian Pinera show no sign of letting up despite a complete cabinet reshuffle two weeks ago. Another example is Ecuador where the government had to move out of the capital last month because of violent protests. And there's also Brazil where one left wing President had been in prison before his release last week, his successor was ousted and her replacement was charged with corruption. President Jair Bolsonaro is now in power. So joining me now for today's "Latin America Debrief" is Eric Farnsworth, who is Vice President of America Society and the Council of the Americas. He is in Washington for us. Great to have you on the show, sir. Thank you very much for joining us.</s>ERIC FARNSWORTH, VP, AMERICAS SOCIETY AND COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS: Thank you Bianca thanks for having me.</s>NOBILO: I think if we can start with trying to get to the bottom of some of these disputed facts about what really happened here with the President's resignation in Bolivia. Morales is maintaining that this is some sort of coup, that is harking back to the brutal military takeovers of years gone by, but the opposition, the person that lost out to him to become President is saying that this was very much a popular movement. What's your assessment?</s>FARNSWORTH: It's really complicated and there's history here. The short answer is that it's not a coup in the traditional sense, certainly. The President Morales did lose the support of the military and the police force and the head of the military did come out on Sunday and encourage President Morales to depart. Some people would say, what's the difference? There's a nuance here. The nuance is that the head of the military asked him to depart so that they could restore calm to the streets. That subsequently hasn't happened. But it was really for public or their insecurity and indeed President Morales said he would step down so that Bolivia could recover. It was really on that basis. I think you also have to remember this, just before that on Sunday, the OAS the Organization of American States had come out with a really condemning report about the elections that Morales oversaw in October and which were clearly seen to be fraudulent and called for Bolivia to rerun those elections. So the political support for the President had been withering he lost the support of the military and he decided for his own good and the good of his country I think to depart and now he's in Mexico.</s>NOBILO: In terms of the political and almost biographical psychological trajectory of Morales. He started at the first indigenous President of Bolivia. It was a law - I think and he has been in power for 13 years. So what happened here? How did he go from that to somebody who was trying to really push the constitutional limits of power and then become involved in these accusations of allegiance?</s>FARNSWORTH: Yes, this is really a shame in some ways because had he left before this whole anti-constitutional effort to maintain power, his legacy would have been totally different. He was the first President elected as an indigenous person. And you remember that the population, the percentage of population in Bolivia that's indigenous is really quite large. It's been downtrodden for years, it's been overlooked, it's clearly underprivileged and to have a President who represents that segment of society is massive, not just in the Bolivian context, but across Latin America. We can celebrate that fact. He also brought some economic growth to the country. Certainly he presided during the period of high commodities prices. He was the beneficiary of that. He did do some things which I think would cause people to say, well, indeed he wasn't like some of the other populist leaders around South America but he also exhibited a penchant to want to stay too long. Every leader is going to lose public support over time. But he ran an election sorry a referendum in 2016 that he lost to allow him to continue in power. Then he got the Supreme Court to issue a favorable ruling that said somehow his human rights had been violated by not been allowed to run for the election and then the election that he ran was fraudulent. So you know the people of Bolivia even many of his supporters really lost confidence in him and lost support and called out for change and that's where we are right now.</s>NOBILO: Eric, Morales was the last of the original leaders of the pink tide in Latin America, do you think that his - the pressure on him and then his subsequent resignation herds the end or marks a repudiation of that? Do you think as the end of that movement or it's resonant in the region?</s>FARNSWORTH: Well, it's really hard to say. You know, every country is different and the voter of each country react to their own personal individual circumstances. But one thing that we can say is that the pink tide is referred to, really did seem to mirror the commodities super cycle when commodity prices were high, the populist leaders in the region were elected. They were popular, they ruled with a lot of money sloshing around. As commodities prices over the last couple of years have gone down, there's been lot less money to circulate and issues like corruption, issues like anti-democratic governance become much more relevant to the voters. That's where I think we have seen country after country trying to turn a different direction. What we see quite clearly is that the leaders from the pink tide were all South American leaders and all of those countries are commodities exporters. So I think that has to be part of the discussion. It probably doesn't explain all of it but it's certainly a large percentage of it.</s>NOBILO: Yes, inextricably linked. Eric Farnsworth thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate the time today.</s>FARNSWORTH: Thank you.</s>NOBILO: When THE BRIEF returns two fake videos are making the rounds showing Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn endorsing each other. What the video creators are trying to warn you about.