katie beeler

This weeks movie was completely different from the presidential documentary from the week before. I thought it was crazy how different things were run for the campaign as well as how different the candidates were that were running. Evo and his followers were clearly representing the indigenous populations that has a large majority in the country of Bolivia. Evo’s plan was socialistic in that it wanted the land of Bolivia to be redistributed to the indigenous people. He also wanted to continue the support of the coca plant growers and keep them from being jobless.

The campaign itself revolved around actually visiting the indigenous people and educating them about how to vote. I believe that had they not run the campaign this way there would have been a much smaller vote for Evo. The smartest thing I saw was the practice elections that were held so that the people who were unable to understand the voting process or red and write. This ensured that there was no miscommunication in the large percentage of people that were voting for Evo and guaranteed that he would get the indigenous vote from the large population that was illiterate.

What I found most interesting about Evo himself was that he was so “down home” for lack of a better word. A real man of the people that seemed to be more concerned with the well being of the under-served than that of making money in the global economy. His main concern was who he represented and that was Bolivia’s indigenous population.

In Les Field’s “Ecuador’s Pan-Indian Uprising,” he says that” 500 years after the conquest, building dynamic indigenous economies are reviving indigenous language, culture, and social organization would be difficult even without the racist opposition of national elites and the studied ignorance of political parties.” This was clearly true before Evo came to represent them. They are an under estimated and almost ‘invisible’ group of people that can not be recognized in their own country politically. Its true that they have indeed come so far since their oppression and have really gained ground in the political arena. I think this can be represented by Evo winning more than 50% of the vote compared to the last election in which the winner only had a little over 20%.