El Gaviero

We’re back! It’s been a busy month, and there’s a lot of catch-up to do.

Let’s start with an excellent report from the Bolivia Information Forum, which has a new bulletin out about the re-inauguration of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The BIF not only has a good rundown of the official ceremony–held in the ruins of the pre-Inca city of Tiwanaku–but also delves into the new makeup of the Bolivian legislature, of which Morales’s MAS party has a commanding majority. (MAS even won big in the lowland regions, which goes to show how much the opposition has been deflated in the last year.) Other interesting facts gleaned from the BIF report: Germán Antelo, former head of the Comité Pro-Santa Cruz, gains a seat on the assembly, and whipping boy to the opposition Jaun Ramón Quintana is out as Morales’s cabinet as minister of the president. (Quintana was accused by the opposition as somehow manufacturing the crisis and massacre of campesinos in Pando department in September 2008; could Morales be trying to placate the opposition with this move?)

There a lot more in the report, and all Bolivia-watchers should read it.