BOLIVIA : A TRIUMPH FOR THE SOCIALIST LEFT

The Bolivian people have restored their socialist government, a year after a U.S. backed military coup forced their former president Evo Morales into exile. It is a historic victory which will likely have ramifications for the further development of the socialist movement elsewhere in Latin America.

WHILE IN NEW ZEALAND we might have re-elected a determinedly centrist Labour Government with little prospect of real change, in Bolivia the weekend's presidential election has been a triumph for the socialist left.

A year after former Bolivian president Evo Morales was ousted in a US-backed military coup that installed a brutal far-right regime, Lous Arce of the Movement for Socialism declared victory in an election where nothing less than the restoration of Bolivia's socialist polices was at stake.

'Democracy has won' said Arce, who served as Morales' finance minister, told the country after one exit poll showed him leading the race with 52.4% of the vote and former president Carlos Mesa trailing a distant second with 31.5%. Right-wing candidate Luis Camacho—an ally of unelected interim President Jeanine Añez—won just 14.1% of the vote, according to the survey. The opposition forces have since conceded.

Arce said that his victory was a mandate to continue the policies of the Morales government, which have lifted millions of Bolivians out of poverty and expanded the nation's economy.

'I think the Bolivian people want to retake the path we were on,' he said.