Bolivia’s Santa Cruz prepares for an indefinite strike over the population census

By Mauricio Rios Garcia

In the absence of problems in a country with a lack of the rule of law and growing uncertainty about the future of its economy, Bolivia is preparing in the coming hours to face one of the biggest conflicts that the Arce regime would not want to have to deal with:

The one derived from the population and housing census.

Three weeks have passed since the Santa Cruz town council, which gathered around one and a half million people at Christ the Redeemer on September 30, gave a mandate to the Inter-Institutional Committee in favor of the census:

To ensure that the registration, which was to take place in 2022, is carried out in 2023. And that Supreme Decree N° 4760, which schedules the census for 2024, be abrogated.

If this does not happen, Santa Cruz will assume an indefinite departmental civic strike starting at zero hours on Saturday, October 22.

Unfortunately, despite several initiatives of both the Catholic Church and the Santa Cruz leaders themselves in search of dialogue with the regime (because they recognize that the strike translates into an important sacrifice of the citizens as a whole, and even more so in times of economic crisis), only the National Institute of Statistics (INE) made a statement revealing that the results of the 2024 census would be known two months before the general elections of 2025, while Luis Arce’s ministers maintain that they will only attend a dialogue “without conditions” such as the one of the strike.

There is probably a perception that this is a dialogue between the deaf since no one is giving in to their position.

However, the truth is that after having assured that the census would be carried out in 2022, without consultation or any justification other than “technical problems”, Arce promulgated the DS N° 4760 to be carried out in 2024 presumably so that both the electoral campaigns and the general elections of 2025, which was also in charge of the same protagonists of today in the Executive, and which was not only a resounding failure but was also deliberately manipulated so that the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS – Movement Toward Socialism) could continue to accumulate power.

In the meantime, while Arce’s followers repeat the mantra that the strike initiative is a new destabilization attempt, Rómulo Calvo, president of the Pro Santa Cruz Committee, still under house arrest, and different representatives of the Executive are throwing adjectives against Santa Cruz opposition leaders and authorities, and have threatened to resort to police forces and use heavy machinery to guarantee that the streets, avenues, and highways are kept open throughout Santa Cruz.

In the same sense, the MAS has called for a “people’s council” for this Friday 21st, in Santa Cruz, with different organizations that make up the Unity Pact (which supports Luis Arce), such as the Departmental Workers’ Central (COD).

But there have also been anonymous accusations that public officials are being forced to travel from other departments to show that the regime is strong and has the support “of the people”.

At the moment, more and more sectors of the organized civil society in Santa Cruz, as well as in other departments such as Oruro, Potosí, La Paz, and Cochabamba, have been joining the pressure of the Interinstitutional Committee in favor of the census in the last days and even hours.

With all these elements, the country is waiting to see what will happen until the last minute of this Friday, October 21, to see if the indefinite strike in Santa Cruz stops and if it does, it is carried out peacefully.

With information from Gaceta