Santa Cruz prefect election update
09.16.2005Technorati tag: Bolivia
In mid June there were five candidates for prefect of Santa Cruz, the populous & resource-rich lowland department. Today, after the last of a series of candidates stepped down, the only substantial candidate is Ruben Costas, the leader of the autonomista movement. He's publicly endorsed by a the powerful Comité Pro Santa Cruz & a host of pro-autonomy social movements, as well as endorsements from UN (Doria Medina's party), PODEMOS (Tuto Quiroga's party), MIR, ADN, NFR, and UCS. He now has an almost insurmountable lead (the others are polling dead) over MAS, MIP, A3-MNR, and USTB. Bottom line: Costas looks like a lock-in to win in December.
As leader of the pro-autonomy movement, he mobilized nearly 500,000 cruceños in a march demanding regional autonomy June 2004 & was declared "governor" by popular proclamation in January. Under his leadership, pro-autonomy social movements numerous times locked horns w/ then-president Mesa, (in part) leading to Mesa's renunciation, as well as winning a call for a referendum on regional autonomy & direct election of prefects.
Posted by Miguel at 11:28 PM
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