https://t.me/theredstream/10660
NOW: Evo Morales’ six-day-long march towards La Paz, Bolivia is about to enter the city. The government of Luis Arce says this is an attempted coup. We are reporting from on the ground.
Pro-Evo Indigenous movements will form two additional columns to enter other access points into La Paz.
Those marching are demanding the registration of Morales’ candidacy and are protesting against the deteriorating economic situation in the country.
Morales’ supporters are calling for President Arce’s resignation, and Arce’s supporters are calling for the arrest of Morales. This is seen by many as the final battle in the internal faction fights within the “Movement Towards Socialism” party.
All schools in La Paz are closed due to expected clashes later today.
This is all incredibly confusing to me…
I.m.h.o., since you asked, here’s an amateurish attempt :
Evo feels/was betrayed, kinda like Rafael Correa with Lenin Moreno, not much seems needed to be explained here.
I unfortunately can’t judge if he’s right to say that Bolivia would be in a better shape than nowadays under his experimented leadership, that’d require a bit of research[1].
I think that Luis Arce considers that Evo is too combative, and that they almost lost a lot with Jeanine Añez, there’s enough to have been scared, at least from my point of view their recovery of power seems as miraculous as the liberation of Julian Assange.
I.d.k. if he’s wrong to believe that toning down the m.a.s. rhetoric would protect their cultural revolution, honestly i don’t think so but i don’t/can’t know for certain.
He surprisingly still has the support of D.Choquehuanca whose political engagement makes no doubt in my eyes.
Luis Arce is still criticizing Israel, or supporting China, Cuba, Venezuela, etc., so apart from being clearly less vocal than Evo the results in international relations dont seem to have changed much, it’s at least not clearly a U-turn, as it was with Lenin Moreno for example.
I can’t imagine any indigenous bolivian that would prefer Añez to Arce, but like, e.g., Lula, Evo has a long history with the population, speaking of him being a living legend is probably too much to say of any living politician, but i’d support him if i was bolivian, you don’t put aside such influential people, i.m.o.
And i spoke about Arce’s “cautiousness”, but Evo wasn’t extreme since he said that he wasn’t against anyone, not the west nor the Resistance, and how much would they need to be pro-west until we(sterners) are satisfied ?
There may be some interest over being powerful, famous, rich, or whatever, as well as some partial disdain, but less cynically i believe that Luis Arce is afraid of what the west may do if Evo returns to power, that it’s not worth it.
These are all speculations, the truth is that i haven’t got a clue either. Following their twitter accounts isn’t enough to understand their justifications, i can’t remember when was the last time that Luis Arce mentioned Evo in his tweets for example(, while Evo Morales frequently attacks Luis Arce, without once getting an answer apparently).
(I obviously think like you that Evo should be able to present himself as a candidate for presidency, and still hope that he will)
[1] : Let’s try to be a bit less lazy.
Half an hour of research didn’t bring much, the coronavirus crisis was hard, but otherwise the economic results doesn’t seem to have been particularly bad nor good.
One recurring cause of preoccupation apparently seems to be the dollar reserves, useful for importations, debt payments, or money stability, it went from 15.5B$ in 2014 to 1.7B ten years later, and it’s even worse for the liquidity(, 800M in 2022, 372M in 2023, 153M in 2024)(, a source). However, if that’s the worst i could find then it isn’t much.
Apparently another problem seems to be the diminishing exports of gaz, which according to some articles was what enabled Evo to put forward its socio-economic measures that fought poverty. They don’t seem to get as much money as before from it, but Luis Arce didn’t cancel these social programs like a true traitor would, perhaps would he have expanded them if he could, i.d.k. :
Yet, once again, nothing absolutely catastrophic, i could focus on their exportations(&nationalization) of lithium to paint a more positive light. Luis Arce obviously didn’t privatized these enterprises, but he didn’t nationalized even more, some sources seems to hint that he’s more open to public-private partnerships, but i’d be very surprised if it lead to him abandoning the nationalization of their resources, he’s after all well placed to know that it’s a part of the neo-colonial playbook.
Some sources speak about an increase of inflation or of the debt, but the former is stable, and the latter seems to have been stabilized, at least in % of the g.d.p. :
I’ve absolutely zero doubts that i’ve missed a lot of things, it’s just that sometimes you can find aberrations at the first glance, which wasn’t the case here after the first ~30-45mn of research, so n.t.r. 🤷, perhaps that Bolivia’s society and economy would indeed have been in a better shape if Evo was still president, or perhaps not, i.d.k.
Maybe we’re all missing something but it really seems to me like there is very little reason for this feud apart from personal animosity. Policy wise they seem to be on the same page, at least in general terms, and as your research indicates there doesn’t seem to have been any big change in the overall situation such that you could say the new government is doing a worse job.
What’s your opinion, or that of any reader passing here, about the way to behave when you’re attacked by the west ? Our newspapers often painted Evo Morales in a negative way despite his exemplarity, sometimes even as a dictator.
Wikipedia states that « Since 1950, Bolivia has seen the most coups of any country », isn’t sacrificing Evo Morales a good thing to please the west ? Will it be enough, and will it be beneficial for Bolivia ?
With that defeatist/cautious mindset, every opposition would have fallen one after the other, only brave rebellions ended slavery, colonization, occupations, … Fighting back seems more dangerous than submitting, but perhaps that it isn’t, and the current government isn’t really submitting but simply being less vocal, if sacrificing Evo could make them gain more years to develop their cultural revolution, then isn’t it worth it ?
On the other side, sacrificing Stalin didn’t accomplish much in the end, because the problem was that they dared to have a different ideology, and even when the u.s.s.r. and eastern europe progressively gave up on socialism, and disappeared, it still wasn’t enough, because Russia was then criticized for supporting Yugoslavia, Lybia, Syria, etc., the endgoal for now is the stupid uniformity, until Russia, and the rest of the world, is aligned with western interests.
There’s no talk of cooperation towards other different countries, it’s about selfish competition.
Yes, it’s tempting to be less vocal in your opposition, but it may also mean being less supportive of, e.g., Venezuela or Cuba, in the name of protecting your own country first.
Yes, nothing will change unless we unite together, but their/our history book is unfortunately full of martyrs that failed, should they/we avenge, e.g., Che Guevara, or learn to not make waves because they have responsabilities ?
Is this willingness of appeasing the west pointless(, whether or not it’s the cause of this feud) ?
From my point of view, their indigenous movement will be next once we’ve destroyed more influent differences such as islamists and the last socialists, they’re simply not powerful enough to be deemed a potential threat.
Yet on the other side it’d be foolish to haste a coup if it can be delayed or even avoided, and a bit naive to simply trust that the population will lead a civil war in order to get the power back.
Most countries try to stay neutral(, some by rejecting all sides and others by supporting all sides). This world sucks, nothing new, clearly nothing normal since uniformity isn’t desirable.
I think that may be a reason : Evo Morales isn’t supported enough by the west.
Does someone here have an opinion on the right action to take ? It’s hard to blame Luis Arce if it’s the main reason to act as such, but it’s also a dangerous slippery slope that he shouldn’t be proud of taking, once again if that’s indeed the reason.