More Bolivian Frolics

Back in Bolivia, which is a lot more fun than Britain (especially if you don't have to live there) Evo Morales has decided to stop pretending to be on hunger strike, and is now pretending that there was a plot to kill him, bizarrely involving a Hungarian novelist, who looks like quite a character, a young Irish fantasist and a Bolivian soldier, all of whom 'died in a shootout with police,' which they apparently took part in while unarmed and in their underwear.

The vice-President, Álvaro García Linera, has said they are the leaders of an international far-right fascist gang (i.e. they disagree with Evo Morales) and have also been blamed for attacking the Cardinal's residence last Wednesday. Oh and he also says they were planning to assassinate the de facto leader of the opposition, Rubén Costas. Costas himself dismisses the whole thing as a Government propaganda show, and he is very probably right. The bodies are real, though. Morales lost his battle with Parliament, though he says he didn't, and is now deep in conversation with Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, learning how to avoid irritating matters like elections and keeping his country fit to live in, so he can concentrate on the more important business of getting immensely rich, playing God and hating anyone he can't bring to the edge of starvation.

The new electoral roll is being compiled with the help of the Organization of American States, so he may have to find another way to fiddle the election. I am not at all sure he will succeed. He is not Fidel Castro. He is not even Hugo Chávez. So there is still hope for Bolivia, but it will take a while.