MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Morales promises legalization of Bolivian coca crops

Bolivian peasant leader Evo Morales who has a comfortable lead in vote preference for next December's presidential race said that if elected he would legalize growing coca which is the raw material for cocaine.

During a press conference Tuesday in La Paz, Mr. Morales anticipated that the current "zero coca" policy would be changed for one of "zero drug trafficking", if he's finally confirmed as next president of politically unstable Bolivia.

Mr. Morales and his strong Movement Toward Socialism influence stems from the peasant coca producers' unions in the central Chapare region. However planting coca, a traditional infusion among highlands Indians going back centuries, is now considered a crime as part of the government's efforts to cut cocaine production, and please the United States government.

Indian organizations argue that the coca they produce is for cultural and medicinal use and Mr. Morales once again denied the alleged link between the peasants and organized drug trafficking.

Mr. Morales emphasized that his party would rule on the basis of the laws from the ancient Andean peoples who spoke the Quechua language, and which says, "ama sua, ama lulla, ama kella" (do not steal, lie or be lazy).

"To those analysts and businessmen who ask us how Indian and peasants are going to rule Bolivia, I'm telling them we have professionals in our party who combine intellectual capacity with social conscience", stressed the Indian leader.

The latest public opinion polls published last weekend show Mr. Morales and his MAS group for the first time clearly ahead of former President Jorge Quiroga, who ruled between 2001-2002, and cement magnate Samuel Doria Medina.

The United States government for years has linked aid to impoverished Bolivia to the elimination of coca crops, most of which Washington argues ends in drug cartels labs in Peru and Colombia.

The issue is most controversial and has caused endless protests, blockades and riots by peasants' organizations contributing to the overall destabilization of the country.