Miners and campesinos to escort Evo Morales, the new Bolivian president in his inauguration parade

LA PAZ.—Columns of miners and campesinos are to flank the victory walk that Evo Morales, the new president of Bolivia, is to make through the streets of La Paz after his investiture.

Grover Cardozo, the coordinator of the Protocol Commission for the transfer of power, told PL that, at Morales’ request, those workers will form the first security line of the walk.

“We want to demonstrate that those people who took Evo Morales to the presidency will be the ones who back, defend and protect his government,” explained the Movement Toward Socialism representative (MAS).

After the two ranks of miners with their traditional helmets and campesinos dressed in their indigenous clothing, will come the armed forces and the police, officially responsible for the leader’s security, Cardozo said.

The president elect is to advance on foot for approximately one kilometer between those columns on January 22, along the old Comercio Street, a pedestrian walkway, to the Plaza de los Héroes, a usual scenario for popular demonstrations.

In that space, where Morales initiated his electoral campaign, the Bolivian leader will ratify before what is expected to be a giant rally, his commitment to govern for his people, in a kind of third investiture.

On January 22, he is to assume the presidency before Congress, and the day before that, to receive the indigenous symbols of leadership in a ceremony in Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco), among the pre-Colombian stone structures on that archeological site.

Aymara campesinos will also provide security for Morales in Tiwanaku, affirmed Cardozo, who also denied that the police had suggested to the president-elect that he should use a bulletproof vest during the investiture ceremony.

Meanwhile, Alvaro García Linera, the vice president elect, affirmed that the new relationship and possible agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be – above anything – subjected to national sovereignty and dignity.

He also confirmed that, for the MAS and Morales it is a priority to change – although not immediately – the neoliberal economic model, whose functioning in Bolivia has been supervised by the IMF since 1985, because it has only caused poverty and suffering for the Bolivian people. (PL)