Opinion: Bolivia faces far-reaching political changes

By Eduardo Rada

The uncertainty and lack of strategic decisions of the main drivers of the “Democratic and Cultural Revolution” in Bolivia; the various meetings between the President and Leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales Ayma, with the President and Vice President of the Plurinational State, Luis Arce Catacora and David Choquehuanca, sometimes with the Ministers, other times with the leaders of the Movements Peasants, Indigenous, Intercultural and Women and the Bolivian Workers Union (COB) and others with MAS leaders, without effective results; and the holding of gigantic rallies and marches of hundreds of thousands of men and women from the popular sectors “in defense of democracy and the MAS government”.

They are the characteristic traces of the current moment in the country.

On the other side, the neoliberal, conservative, and oligarchic opposition, constituted in the first place by the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, the business media, the minority parties of the Legislative Assembly, the Citizen Community (CC) of Carlos Mesa and CREEMOS of Fernando Camacho, current Governor of Santa Cruz, some citizen platforms and social sectors and agents of the Latin American right wing installed in Miami and Washington; They are trying to repeat the script of the October-November 2019 coup taking advantage of any current issue or issue and, now, the disputes in the ruling party.

The confluence of regional, political, and social conflicts inside and outside the government and the MAS contrasts with a stable economic outlook, in which indicators of economic growth, exports, trade balance, balance of payments, inflation, monetary stability, and industrialization mark results. positive, despite the negative pressures of the post-pandemic international economic crisis and the Ukrainian War.

ENDOGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS STRESSES

In this general context, the vicissitudes that the political process in the country has faced in recent weeks has accelerated, both due to actions from the regional and political opposition and the media of private corporations due to the issue related to the date of completion of the Population and Housing Census and due to the conflicts within the power bloc made up of the Unity Pact (PU), the COB, the parliamentarians of the Legislative Assembly, the ministers of the central government and the leadership of the MAS, thus opening a series of questions about the perspectives of the historical and revolutionary transformations developed in the last twenty years.

The stoppage of activities promoted regionally by the Civic Committee, the Government and the so-called Inter-institutional Committee of Santa Cruz that, through violence and the actions of the shock groups of the Cruceñista Youth Union (UJC), challenging the date of the Census National Population and Housing Program, set by the government for 2024, and calling for its completion in 2023, was extended for more than three weeks, causing losses estimated by the government at US$1 billion, the death of four people and violent clashes with the policeman. This movement is led by Fernando Camacho and Rómulo Calvo who, together with Jeanine Añez, now imprisoned and sentenced to ten years in prison, carried out the 2019 coup.

Camacho and Calvo represent the regional power sectors, the eastern landowners, the Toborochi and Caballeros del Oriente lodges, and have the support of federalist and separatist groups. In their mobilizations, their leaders demanded that the Bolivian Police and the Armed Forces assume positions adverse to the government, as they did in 2019 when the Police Mutiny was carried out and the insubordination of the high military commands to overthrow Evo Morales. Likewise, due to their relationship with the large soybean agro-exporters and Governors of the neighboring Brazilian states, these lodges had expectations that Jair Bolsonaro would be able to win the elections in Brazil.

Faced with this situation, the popular organizations of the city of Santa Cruz, neighborhood associations of the peripheral neighborhoods, carriers, merchants, street vendors and trade unions that were economically disadvantaged, confronted the promoters of the strike, and simultaneously the social movements of peasants, women peasant, indigenous and intercultural women from the Unity Pact (PU) and the MAS surrounded and fenced off the city of Santa Cruz, preventing the entry of food and other consumer products; generating a high tension situation and violent confrontations.

REJECTION OF DIALOGUE AND CONSENSUS

Meanwhile, the business media, especially the newspapers El Deber, Los Tiempos and Página Siete and the UNITEL and UNO channels, developed openly conspiratorial campaigns against the democratic process seeking repercussions and support for the movement from Santa Cruz from the other regions of Bolivia, especially the seat of government, without obtaining important support, except for small marches and concentrations in Cochabamba, Tarija and La Paz that did not have a major impact

The president of the Plurinational State and the authorities opened various channels of dialogue and debate in the nine departments of the country regarding the technical definition of the census date, with the advice of officials from the United Nations Organization (UN) and the Center Latin American Department of Demography (CELADE).

The government, after consultations with all the Governors, Municipalities, Institutions and Universities of Bolivia and holding a National Summit in the city of Cochabamba, determined to set the final date for March 23, 2024, leaving the radical movement of the violent and undemocratic right.

The results of the Census will be important because they will make it possible to define the distribution of economic resources based on the number of inhabitants in each department, municipality and public university, as well as the redistribution of parliamentary seats for the 2025 elections. In this regard, the Plurinational Electoral Tribunal signed an agreement with the Chamber of Deputies and the Minister of Planning to ensure that the census results are delivered in September 2024.

Despite this consensus, the radical groups of the Interior and the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz and their shock groups of the Cruceñista Youth Union continued to carry out racist and discriminatory operations of violence against merchants and market vendors and residents of the Cruceños suburbs, most of these Colla migrants, that is, originating from western Bolivia.

CONTROVERSIES IN THE GOVERNMENT AND IN THE MAS

At the same time, the verbal confrontations between social and political leaders, parliamentarians and ministers within the ruling party became more accentuated, to the point of causing divisions in the MAS parliamentary caucus and even fighting between deputies. The Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, assumed public positions in solidarity with parliamentarians, leaders and journalists of the conservative opposition, the deputy Rolando Cuellar opened a smear campaign against the head and leader of the MAS, Evo Morales, receiving the support of some public officials.

For his part, the second leader of the MAS, Gerardo García, accused several Ministers and the Vice President of the State, David Choquehuanca, of carrying out, from their offices, campaigns against the MAS, the pro-government parliamentarian Héctor Arce launched complaints of corruption by authorities of high level of the government and the former Minister of Government who could not stop the police riot of 2019, Carlos Romero, harshly attacked the government for delaying the date of the census, coinciding with the oligarchic opposition.

Speculation revolves around an issue linked to the political future of MAS and also the process of political, social, cultural and economic transformations in terms of future presidential candidacies for the 2025 elections. Statements by second and third level leaders have been expressed for different options: some are in favor of the presidential candidacy of Evo Morales and others for that of Luis Arce; the first has stated that the decision in this regard will only be adopted in 2024 and now it is up to the government to defend it. The electoral norms even establish the holding of primary elections.

BACKGROUND TO THE CONSPIRACY

During the first term of President Evo Morales, when the hydrocarbons were nationalized and the privatized companies were recovered for the State and in the midst of the debate for the approval of the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia in September and October 2008, there was an attempt to civil war also in Santa Cruz and the eastern part of the country that sought to promote federalism and territorial and political separatism also promoted by Civic Committees and regional authorities, causing violent confrontations and the defeat of the federalists sponsored by landowners and agro-exporters.

On that occasion, the government of Evo Morales determined to expel the United States ambassador, Philip Golberg, for political interference and support for the subversives. Meanwhile, the Summit of Presidents of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), meeting in Santiago de Chile at the initiative of Lula Da Silva, Michelle Bachelet and Hugo Chávez, gave its support to the democratically elected government.

The next conspiracy movement of the radical and neoliberal right took place in October-November 2019 with the execution of the civic-police-military coup d’état that forced Evo Morales to leave the country in an emergency situation due to the risk of an attack on his life supported by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador who sent a military plane from Mexicoico and Alberto Fernández, elected Argentine president.

At that time the artifice was an alleged electoral fraud before the fourth electoral victory of the MAS; there was a massive mobilization of middle and wealthy sectors led by Fernando Camacho of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee followed by a Police Riot and the request for resignation by the Armed Forces. The governments of the United States (Donald Trump) and Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro) immediately recognized the de facto government and the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro became a supporter of the Añez government.

COUP AND RESURRECTION

The execution of the coup was coordinated by officials from the embassies of the United States, the European Union and Brazil, the bishops of the Catholic Church, the political leaders Carlos Mesa, Fernando Camacho, Samuel Doria Medina and Jorge Quiroga who met in the offices of the Catholic University and defined that Senator Jeanine Añez assume the presidency of the country.

After a few months of popular stupor and when the de facto government implemented measures in favor of landowners, private banks, transnationals, the media that supported the coup and private business groups, neglecting attention to the population in the face of COVID-19 and systematically postponing the holding of new elections, the popular movements, are the MAS, the COB and the PU at the head, promoted a resistance throughout the national territory that in August 2020 became a national-popular mobilization, forcing the calling of elections in October 2020.

In these elections, the MAS won again with 55% of the vote – in 2005 it did so with 54%, in 2009 with 64%, in 2014 with 61% and in 2019 with 47% – being candidates for the presidency, Luis Arce and the vice presidency David Choquehuanca, both former Ministers of Economy and Foreign Relations, respectively, of Evo Morales, who was in exile in Argentina, after passing through Mexico. The initial nomination of candidates was raised by the popular organizations of the Unity Pact in Bolivia with David Choquehuanca for the presidency and Andrónico Rodríguez for the presidency and then, in consultation with Evo Morales in Buenos Aires, the Arce-Choquehuanca pairing emerged.

OPEN OUTCOME

In the last two years, the MAS government has identified various challenges related to political, economic, and international issues: maintaining stability and economic growth, ensuring internal unity and facing conflicts cohesively, and actively participating in regional integration processes in ALBA, CELAC, CAN and in the reconstruction of UNASUR and, at the same time, facing several conflicts against which the national and popular movement as a whole has carried out at least three large marches with more than a million adherents who spoke for the defense of the process of change, in these marches, rallies and mobilizations, Evo Morales, Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca participated as the main referents of the current process.

This panorama allows us to notice that if the main leaders and authorities, Evo Morales, President of the MAS, Luis Arce, President of the State, and David Choquehuanca, Vice President, do not find a unity and coherence agreement, demanded by the popular and union organizations of all the country, the political perspectives of the national-popular revolutionary process will appear very difficult, putting at risk the economic, political and social transformations carried out in Bolivia.

The rebellion of October 2003, which expelled the neoliberalism represented by Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada from Bolivia, was the impulse of twenty years of the national liberation process; now, the resistance, struggle and defeat of the coup d’état and the de facto government opens a new period that should serve to deepen the anti-imperialist struggle and contribute to the construction of Latin American and Caribbean socialism.

With information from La Haine

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