Year of Living Democratically  Late on the night of December 18,
Evo Morales became South America’s first indigenous President.
No less frightening for his detractors in the United States,, he
is an open admirer of Fidel Castro and Hugo ChÃ¡vez. Evo is the
most recent in a long line of left-leaning Presidents to be
elected in Latin America, and with ten Presidential elections
scheduled for 2006 there may be more to come. In Latin America
the “dominoes” seem to be falling again. By this time next year,
the political landscape could look very different.  What is at
stake is the definition and reality of democracy. Is democracy
just a code word for US interests, or is democracy the
expression of people’s aspiration to control their own lives?
Both the US, with its strategy of “democracy promotion,” and the
people’s movements, with their own ideas about democracy, will
have something to say about these questions in 2006.  “The Cold
War is Dead. Long Live the Cold War.”  Latin America’s growing
“leftward shift” re