[News] The Horizon of Evo Morales’ Long Decade in Power: Implications of Bolivia’s Referendum Results

[Anti-Imperialist News]

February 25, 2016


  The Horizon of Evo Morales’ Long Decade in Power: Implications of
  Bolivia’s Referendum Results
  <http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/25/the-horizon-of-evo-morales-long-decade-in-power-implications-of-bolivias-referendum-results/>

by Benjamin Dangl <http://www.counterpunch.org/author/benjamin-dangl/>

*http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/25/the-horizon-of-evo-morales-long-decade-in-power-implications-of-bolivias-referendum-results/*

Bolivian President Evo Morales lost the referendum last Sunday that 
could have given him the ability to run for re-election in 2019. The 
margin was small, but the implications are huge: Bolivia’s longest 
standing and most popular president finally has an end date for his time 
in power, on January 22, 2020.

The lead up to the election was brutal, with an array of corruption 
scandals and conflicts, the most tragic of which was a protest last 
Wednesday against the opposition-controlled mayor’s office that resulted 
in a fire leading to six deaths. This disaster, the key details of which 
are still unclear, cast a shadow 
<https://woborders.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/deadly-el-alto-protest-casts-shadow-on-bolivian-referendum/> 
over the referendum. But the corruption scandals, which had besieged 
pro-Morales indigenous and /campesino/ organizations as well as the 
presidency, had already made their imprint on national public opinion. 
Just last March, the Movement Toward Socialism, (MAS, Morales’ political 
party) lost key regional elections 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/5260-bolivias-contested-process-of-change-views-from-a-regional-election> 
in several departments, in part due to the fallout from the corruption 
charges.

Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, who rose to prominence as 
a union leader among coca farmers and as a dissident congressman, has 
won three general elections, including a 2014 victory 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/5080-why-evo-morales-will-likely-win-upcoming-elections-in-bolivia> 
with over 60% of the vote, and is now in his tenth year in power. Over 
this decade, he has presided over a host of historic policies and 
measures, including rewriting the constitution in a constituent 
assembly, extending government control over the country’s lucrative 
natural gas reserves, and expanding access to education, healthcare 
<https://nacla.org/news/bolivia-prescribes-solidarity-health-care-reform-under-evo-morales>, 
and the political process to previously marginalized sectors of society. 
Economic growth has remained solid through much of his time in power, 
thanks to his government’s economic policies and the boom in oil and gas 
prices. As a result, under Morales, poverty rates have dropped 
dramatically for citizens in South America’s poorest country.

But this period hasn’t been without its pitfalls, and critics on the 
left and the right have pointed out a variety of problems surrounding 
the MAS government. Critics claimed the 2009 constitution, presided over 
by the MAS government, failed to bring forward necessary land reform. 
Morales touts the rights of nature and Mother Earth, but leads an 
extractive-based economy 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/4816-the-politics-of-pachamama-natural-resource-extraction-vs-indigenous-rights-and-the-environment-in-latin-america> 
that has wreaked havoc in the countryside, extended extractive 
industries 
<https://nacla.org/blog/2015/06/15/morales-greenlights-tipnis-road-oil-and-gas-extraction-bolivia%E2%80%99s-national-parks> 
into national parks, and displaced some of the same rural communities 
his policies aim to support. Denouncements of corruption scandals, 
co-optation and repression of various social and indigenous movements, 
authoritarian tendencies against political opponents and critical media 
have followed his presidency for years. At the same time, the opposition 
has been fragmented, lacking unity while Morales and the MAS 
consistently win major elections and reforms supported at the ballot box.

The referendum which took place on Sunday brought many of these issues 
to the forefront, at times making the vote less about the nature of 
democracy in Bolivia, and more about Morales himself. The president said 
he would win the referendum in a landslide, but in the end, the Yes vote 
supporting his hopes for re-election in 2019 lost by roughly 2%.

The implications of the referendum results are varied 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Evo-Morales-Wont-Run-in-2019-But-MAS-Will-Continue-Fighting-20160221-0027.html>. 
First is the issue of succession. Morales said today that it is too 
early to speak of who might fill his shoes on the MAS ticket. Regardless 
of who takes on that role, the MAS is very likely to have a prominent 
presence in Bolivia’s political sphere for decades to come. The 
opposition is still very divided and without key leaders. The No vote in 
the referendum had the impact of uniting a wide array of MAS opponents 
that don’t just go under the umbrella of the Bolivian right; 
disenchanted leftists, people simply tired of Morales or believing that 
a change in the presidency is good for democracy, anarchists, indigenous 
dissidents, and others allied with the neoliberals and conservatives to 
vote No. The referendum victory they brought about doesn’t necessary 
signal a shift to the right in Bolivia. Indeed, it simply further opens 
up the playing field to the country’s variety of political currents.

The vote does however point to a significant new chapter in Bolivia’s 
recent political trajectory. Morales was first elected in 2005 on the 
back of a series of popular uprisings that challenged neoliberalism and 
toppled establishment politicians. The social movements of the era that 
took a stand against corporate globalization and the Bolivian oligarchy 
transformed the country’s political landscape, opening up spaces for 
change that Morales filled; the indigenous president, no stranger to 
protests and road blockades himself, used his relationship with the 
country’s dynamic social movements to push forward institutional and 
societal changes that otherwise would have been impossible.

But the Bolivian left and its vibrant social and indigenous movements 
were always bigger than the MAS, and Sunday’s referendum results 
underline this. The future of the country beyond January of 2020 will 
not have a Morales presidency in it, but it will still be in the hands 
of the Bolivian people who, over the last decade and a half, kicked out 
multinational corporations, ousted neoliberal tyrants, faced down US 
imperialism, and expanded the country’s – and the world’s – imagination 
about what is politically possible, not just via the ballot box, but 
through protests, barricades, and social movements.

Join the debate on Facebook 
<https://www.facebook.com/CounterPunch-official-172470146144666/>

/*Benjamin Dangl* has worked as a journalist throughout Latin America, 
covering social movements and politics in the region for over a decade. 
He is the author of the books Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements 
and States in Latin America 
<http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Dynamite-Social-Movements-America/dp/1849350159>, 
and The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia 
<http://www.amazon.com/Price-Fire-Resource-Movements-Bolivia/dp/190485933X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422481340&sr=1-1&keywords=price+of+fire&pebp=1422481360338&peasin=190485933X>. 
Dangl is currently a doctoral candidate in Latin American History at 
McGill University, and edits UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism 
and politics in Latin America, and TowardFreedom.com, a progressive 
perspective on world events. Twitter: 
https://twitter.com/bendangl Email: BenDangl(at)gmail(dot)com/

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