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CIA And Elite Corporatists Take An L In Lithium-Rich Bolivia With Evo Morales Party Win

CIA And Elite Corporatists Take An L In Lithium-Rich Bolivia With Evo Morales Party Win

Bolivia
Luis Arce, center, Bolivian presidential candidate for the Movement Towards Socialism Party, MAS, and running mate David Choquehuanca, second right, celebrate victory after general elections in La Paz, Bolivia, Oct. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Bolivia has a new president — Luis Arce — and he’s not a member of the rightwing conservative U.S.-backed interim government that took power there a year ago in what many believe was a coup.

Exit polls project that Arce, the candidate for Evo Morales’ leftwing party, the Movement Towards Socialism, secured more than 50 percent of the vote after the longtime leftist leader Morales resigned and fled Bolivia a year ago.

Arce’s rivals conceded defeat on Monday, including U.S.-backed interim President Jeanine Áñez.

As Morales’ economy minister for more than a decade, Arce is credited with a surge in growth and a sharp reduction in poverty. A boom in prices for Bolivia’s mineral exports helped feed that progress, AP reported.

Bolivia has as much as 45 percent of the world’s known lithium reserves — an estimated 21 tons.

Lithium is a crucial component in the batteries used in Tesla vehicles and other electric cars, as well as computers, smartphones, and other equipment. “Its value is set to skyrocket as sales of such vehicles increase,” according to a People’s World report.

Lithium can only be extracted and processed by Bolivians, but private companies are vying for access to the country’s vast resources.

Efforts to win access to the precious metal, led by mining companies in the U.S., Canada, South Korea, and elsewhere, failed before Morales was ousted, according to the report.

Instead, Morales made deals with Chinese and Russian companies that would benefit Bolivia’s Indigenous population, People’s World reported. Morales said the coup was an “act of revenge by the United States, which never accepted the loss of control of the Bolivian lithium market in favor of Chinese and German companies.”

The price boom that helped reduce poverty in Bolivia has since faded, and coronavirus has hit the landlocked country harder than almost any other country on a per capita basis, AP reported. Nearly 8,400 of its 11.6 million people have died of covid-19.

Interim Bolivian President Añez contracted the virus, along with about a dozen members of her senior cabinet.

Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Morales was hugely popular. A boyhood llama herder, he rose to prominence leading a coca grower’s union. He led the country from 2006 until 2019 before losing support over his reluctance to respect term limits, his increasing authoritarianism and a series of corruption scandals.

Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador in 2008 but the embassy in La Paz remained open. The Trump administration celebrated Morales’ ouster as a watershed moment for democracy in Latin America.

Billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk in July came under fire after welcoming the 2019 overthrow of Morales in what was seen as a bid to obtain the country’s lithium reserves.

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Responding to a tweet that accused the U.S. government of forcing Morales out, allowing Musk to access Bolivian resources, Musk tweeted, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

Hundreds of Bolivia’s Indigenous population were massacred after what was described as “a fascist coup” against Morales, who went into exile in Argentina.

In the U.S., a state department spokesperson said, “We are awaiting the official results, but President Trump and the United States look forward to working with whomever the Bolivians elect. We will continue to promote democracy, human rights and prosperity in Bolivia and throughout the region.”

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