Coca farmer loses bid for Bolivian presidency FINAL Edition

• Published in: Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland : Daily)
• Main Author: Athena Jones In la Paz
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh (UK) Scotsman Publications 06.08.2002
• Subjects: Morales, Evo
• ISSN: 0307-5850

Mr [Lozada], who will be sworn in today, all but sealed the congressional vote by late July after forming an alliance between his centrist National Revolutionary Movement and his long-time leftist rival, former President Jaime Paz Zamora, head of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left Party, which guaranteed Lozada a majority in the 157-member Congress. A mine owner and one of Bolivia's wealthiest men, Mr Lozada has pledged to revive the landlocked country's stagnant economy. About 60 per cent of the nation's eight million people live in poverty and Mr Lozada will face resistance to forging ahead with free-market reforms and coca eradication efforts that made one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere a key ally of Washington for much of the 1990s. The destruction of coca crops in what was once the world's No 2 producer sent many poor farmers deeper into poverty.