SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — Leftist  populist President Evo Morales — until recently one of Latin America’s most  popular presidents — is playing a dangerous card to improve his falling support  at home: reviving a 132-year-old territorial conflict with neighboring  Chile.

During a three-day visit here last week, I was surprised to find out that  Morales had declared April 29 as national Day of Sea Reclamation, only a few  weeks after the country  had celebrated its traditional Day of the Sea on March  23.

The new national observance, just like the old one, was marked by government-organized rallies throughout the country to demand that this landlocked country be given an outlet to the Pacific Ocean through what today is Chilean territory.

Morales announced recently that Bolivia will go to international  tribunals “to demand free and sovereign access to the sea.” Since then, in  addition to creating the new “Sea Reclamation” day, he has vowed to demand that  Chile pay Bolivia for its use of the Silala River on the two countries’ border.

Chile claims that it is willing to continue ongoing negotiations that could  provide Bolivia with a passage to the Pacific Ocean through Chile, but without  giving Bolivia sovereign rights over that territory.

The two countries broke diplomatic ties in 1978 over the issue, but had been  negotiating a solution to the conflict in recent years.

What’s going on?, I asked several Bolivian politicians and journalists.  Virtually all responded that Morales, who won a second term in 2009 with a  massive 64 percent of the vote, has been in a political free fall since  December, and is propping up the fight with Chile for domestic political  reasons.

Morales’ poll numbers fell abruptly in December, when he announced a 70  percent increase in gasoline prices.

Facing massive street protests, including from many leftist unions and  indigenous groups that had been his allies, he backed down, but he has yet to  recover from the political blow.

Morales’ popularity has fallen to 32 percent in most polls, his lowest number  since he took office five years ago.

“The government is rapidly losing popular support, and this fight with Chile  is a consequence of that,” says Samuel Doria Medina, a business tycoon and  opposition leader who is currently facing several government suits for alleged  economic crimes. “Morales is trying to divert public attention from our economic  problems.”

Santa Cruz governor Ruben Costas, one of the few Bolivian opposition  governors who remain in their jobs after the government forced most of his  colleagues out of office through lawsuits or intimidation, told me that he  expects a “continued and irreversible deterioration” of the Morales  government.

Despite record world prices for  Bolivia’s mineral exports, which increased  the country’s income by a whopping 160 percent since Morales took office five  years ago, the economy is in a mess.

Silver prices soared from $7 an ounce years ago to $45 nowadays, and tin  prices rose from $2 to $14 over the same period.

And yet, Morales’ massive cash handouts, disastrous government takeovers of  major companies and mounting debts with Venezuela and other countries have left  the government broke.

To make things worse, there are virtually no investments, because  nationalizations have scared away national and foreign investors. While the  government has changed the way it measures inflation to report lower figures,  real inflation is at about 15 percent, and rising.

“I’m afraid that inflation is going to soar, and the government will become  even more radical,” Costas said. “They will try to generate even greater  confrontations, to create a climate that will allow them to maintain this  populist project.”

My opinion: It is not unusual for Bolivian presidents to revive their  country’s territorial dispute with Chile whenever their poll numbers are low. I  can remember several of Morales’ predecessors, centrists and rightists, who did  the same thing when in trouble at home.

The difference this time is that Morales has added an ideological element  that didn’t exist before — the political partisanship of his country’s armed  forces. Last year, at the request of Morales, the Bolivian army declared itself “socialist,” “anti-imperialist” and “anti-capitalist.”

While Bolivia’s army is no match to Chile’s, by a long stretch, one could not  rule out its willingness to create a border skirmish with Chile in an effort to  help Morales draw support at home and win the 2014 elections. That would have  been unthinkable in recent times, but not in today’s Bolivia.