On November 8, for the first anniversary of Luis Arce’s election to the presidency of Bolivia, which marks the return of the left to power, a coalition of opposition forces and unions stood out by launching a strike unlimited, blocking the country for nine days. Civic committees and unions demanded the withdrawal of a law against “illicit profits”, supposed to fight against money laundering and tax evasion, but fought as “Confiscatory”, “punitive »And adopted without debate. Faced with the scale of the mobilizations, the government ended up giving in and withdrawing the text, regaining a precarious social peace.
But the reaction of the government camp was not long in coming. Former President Evo Morales (2006-2019), now a strong man of the majority party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) to which President Arce belongs, organized a march in support of the president. A six-day march from the provinces to the capital, La Paz, in the form of a show of force.
The tension that prevailed then recalled the hours of extreme polarization of the country at the end of 2019, when, after a contested elections, the president, Evo Morales, was forced to resign amid a surge of violence. An episode denounced by the authorities as a “coup” and which left 37 dead and hundreds injured.
Two years after the departure of Mr. Morales and one year after the return to favor of the MAS, the same political actors, or almost, are still there. Sure, Evo Morales has stepped down, but he’s never far behind the president, Luis Arce. On the right, Fernando Camacho, the agitator of the region of the East – who had led the protest against the alleged fraud of 2019 – was elected governor of Santa Cruz, and still leads the sling. In the center, Carlos Mesa tries to find a place for himself, without succeeding. As for Jeanine Añez, who, in November 2019, proclaimed herself president as second vice-president of the Senate, facing an empty presidential chair, she has been in prison since March. Prosecuted for “sedition” and “terrorism”, she awaits trial.
“Putsch” or “fraud”?
As Bolivia tries to raise its head after the economic and health crisis, not a day goes by without this month of November 2019 being mentioned.. “We are entangled in this interminable discussion, ‘putsch’ or ‘fraud’, which floods the political space and prevents politicians from tackling the real problems of society”, deplores the sociologist and political scientist Maria Teresa Zegada. And to quote a poll by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Bolivia which indicates that 70% of Bolivians are not interested in this debate and are more concerned about their economic conditions or their health.
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