Bolivia: Between optimism and caution over Boric’s victory in Chile

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The most enthusiastic over Boric’s election in Bolivia were pro-government supporters who used social networks to celebrate his triumph, partly because he is a leftist and also because they understand that this will open a new stage in the relations between Bolivia and Chile.

One of the first to celebrate Boric’s victory in Bolivia was Senate president Andrónico Rodríguez, who said he hoped that this would mark the beginning of a “new stage of diplomatic relations” between the two countries.

Presidential spokesman Jorge Richter said that “the great homeland, social justice and socialist ideals are taking the streets of our Plurinational America” when referring to the triumphs of Arce in Bolivia, Pedro Castillo in Peru, Xiomara Castro in Honduras and now Boric in Chile.

Vice-Minister of Communications Gabriela Alcón highlighted the regional shift to the left and considered that “a potential improvement in the relations with Chile will be seen later at diplomatic levels.”

The bilateral situation has been particularly tense in recent years due to the lawsuit filed in 2013 by the government of Evo Morales before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague seeking a ruling that would force Chile to firmly negotiate a sovereign access to the Pacific claimed by Bolivia.

In 2018 the ICJ ruled that Chile has no legal obligation to negotiate with Bolivia, although Bolivian authorities understand that the ruling does not pose an impediment to dialogue.

PRUDENCE AND SKEPTICISM

International affairs analyst Alvaro Del Pozo said that Boric’s election to the Chilean government is an “opportunity,” albeit not one “of impossible scenarios” after “judicialized” relations due to the Bolivian maritime claim and another controversy also before the ICJ over the Silala waters.

“The first thing that the Bolivian and Chilean governments should do is try to rebuild trust between them and set a new agenda that includes the medium-term prospect of re-establishing diplomatic relations,” he said.

Diplomatic relations have been severed since 1962, except for a hiatus from 1975 through 1978, due to the lack of a solution to the centuries-old Bolivian maritime claim, although consulates are maintained in La Paz and Santiago.

For Del Pozo, the ICJ ruling “is still very recent,” so it would be a “mistake” to seek a dialogue based on the maritime issue, a matter that “we must never forget,” but which must be worked on “in a different way.”

He also stressed that regardless of the ideology shared in some points, “the Chilean institutionality is very strong,” so the maritime issue will be “almost untouchable” in terms of solutions demanded by Bolivia, at least at the beginning of Boric’s government.

For opposition deputy Gustavo Aliaga, a career diplomat, “Chile’s foreign policy remains inalterable” and “absolutely nothing will change” irrespective of his government’s ideology.

“That is what we Bolivians do not understand, we thought that a leftist government had come (…) and the issues with Bolivia were going to be different, as when Michelle Bachelet was President,” Aliaga said.

But “they did not signal any alternative because Chile maintained its foreign policy of rejecting any Bolivian claim,” he added.

Aliaga insisted that Boric will be different from Sebastián Piñera “in terms of manners, cordiality with President Arce, but foreign policy will not be changed” and this because in 2022 both countries will meet again in The Hague over the Silala case.

ECONOMY AND TRADE

In the economic area, Bolivian Vice-Minister of Foreign Trade Benjamín Blanco expressed his confidence that with the new Chilean government, bilateral economic relations will be deepened and progress is expected on issues such as the fight against smuggling, which will require “great political resolve.”

Bolivia maintains a historically negative trade balance with Chile, with an accumulated deficit of US$4.111 billion between 2006 and so far in 2021, said private Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade (IBCE) general manager Gary Rodriguez.

Chile is a “very competitive” country, so an eventual improvement in trade relations depends more on Bolivia than on its neighbor, to whom it no longer sells “for reasons of competitiveness,” he said.

According to Rodríguez, the new scenario posed by the president-elect “is one of big uncertainties,” because apart from diplomatic rapprochements and “declarations of good will,” everything that happens in Chile in the political, social and economic fields “will have a strong impact on Bolivia.”