President Luis Arce: “Backtracking to govern in Bolivia”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In 2008, famed U.S. political scientist Joel S. Migdal made a prophetic statement: “As the 21st century unfolds, the State will remain center stage, but it will be increasingly difficult for the State to achieve conformity and obedience.

The paradox was that this much-required State sought to dominate society with strong tendencies to disavow its authority and, in some cases, the legitimacy of its governments. At the end of 2019, “social outbursts” in Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia resulted in political crises.

In Chile, the Government presided by Sebastián Piñera had no choice but to leave without effect the increase in the price of the Santiago Metro ticket, just as, in the case of Ecuador, President Lenín Moreno had to abandon his intention to eliminate the gasoline subsidy. In Bolivia, the massive urban protests caused by President Morales’ insistence on remaining in power ended with his resignation and subsequent departure to Mexico.

However, something distinguishes the Bolivian case: the MAS, despite the 2019 crisis and Morales‘ resignation, was able to recompose its party structures, organize its bases and achieve a resounding victory in the 2020 presidential elections with an absolute majority.

REGRESSION AS A LOGIC OF GOVERNMENT

With this background, is it possible to speak of governmental weakness in a government such as that of Luis Arce, which obtained 55% of the votes plus 76 seats in Parliament out of a possible 130? Even more so, when the opposition parties are (almost) a caricature of a political party? Unquestionably not, the resounding electoral triumph has endowed the MAS government with an indisputable legitimacy of origin that, in theory, should lead it to deploy its policies without major turbulences.

However, this is not the case. So far this period, the Government has had to backtrack on several policies, the most notable being the abrogation of Law 1386 against illicit profits and financing of terrorism, a law which, moreover, had already passed all the filters of the Legislative Power.

The surprising thing is that the opposition to this law came from sectors allied to the Government, such as transporters, trade unions, and mining cooperativists, who, beyond the anti-MAS speeches of their temporary partners in struggles, such as the Santa Cruz and Potosí civic groups, were undoubtedly afraid of a law that could investigate the sources of their fortunes.

The second major setback was the postponement of the requirement to carry the COVID-19 vaccination card to carry out procedures in public and private entities. On January 1, 2022, Luis Arce implemented this policy, only to stop it six days later.

The Government has justified the freeze by alluding to the long lines at the vaccination posts, but this is not the truth or not the whole truth. What is happening is that (again) social movements allied to MAS announced measures asking for the annulment of the decree, such as the Departmental Federation of Rural Education Teachers of La Paz, the coca growers of Yungas, the youth of MAS, the Federation of peasants Túpac Katari, the Federation of Bartolinas Peasant Women, the Interculturales, the Markas y Ayllus Confederation, the Civic Committee of El Alto, and the Council of Peasant Federations of Los Yungas, along with several other smaller but no less combative organizations such as the Ponchos Rojos. All of them are now in power, but they block Arce’s policies from the outside.

It could be due to Arce’s style of Government, which, unlike his predecessor, prefers to retreat rather than confront. However, although leadership is important, even more so in a presidentialist regime such as the Bolivian one, the repetition of Arce’s setbacks invites some explanations that point to more structural aspects, typical of the configuration of the Bolivian plurinational State.

The problem lies in the fact that the MAS government came to power with the support of a series of popular organizations (peasant unions, indigenous movements, urban groups) that were never fully institutionalized by the State, that is, they were not absorbed by MAS. For the union actors, it was more beneficial to maintain the independence of their organizations while remaining present in the state apparatus, which leads them to act when it comes to preserving their interests, from both inside and outside the Government. The clearest example is the Federation of cooperativist miners, whose leaders have reached the head of the mining ministry. Still, when they saw that government policies did not coincide with their business interests, they did not hesitate to take to the streets to confront their Government.

Therefore, although Luis Arce can establish his agenda with a certain autonomy, in the long run, those who shape the policies, those who define whether the law or public policy goes into effect or not, are the social movements or a part of them. The Migdal mentioned above pointed out that the State engaged in real “pitched battles” with other influential actors who opposed or resisted its determinations, but Migdal asserted this on the assumption that they were, in one way or another, outside the Government, not inside. The peculiarity of the MAS government is that its partners, when it suits them, act as allies and, when it does not, as independent unions.

While this is nothing new (in fact, it was the constitutive feature of the MAS government), Morales’ overall dominance and leadership over the social movements somewhat mitigated this problem. On the other hand, President Arce lacks any influence whatsoever over these actors, which leads to a government with very relative autonomy to establish its own agenda of priorities and a marked weakness to carry out its public policies.

With information from El Universo

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