[News] Bolivia: An Election in the Midst of an Ongoing Coup

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/13/bolivia-an-election-in-the-midst-of-an-ongoing-coup/ 



  Bolivia: An Election in the Midst of an Ongoing Coup

by Vijay Prashad <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/drespu/> - 
February 13, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

On May 3, 2020, the Bolivian people will go to the polls once more 
<https://www.thetricontinental.org/bolivia/>. They return there because 
President Evo Morales had been overthrown in a coup in November 2019. 
Morales had just won a presidential election in October for a term that 
would have begun in January 2020. Based on a preliminary investigation 
<https://tinyurl.com/swn5q2q> by the Organization of American States 
(OAS) that claimed that there was fraud in the election, Morales was 
prematurely removed from office; the term for his 2014 presidential 
election victory did not end until January. Yet, he was told by the 
military to leave office. An interim president—Jeanine Áñez—appointed 
herself. She said she was taking this office only on an interim basis 
and would not run for election when Bolivia held another election. She 
is a candidate for the May 3 election. (For more information on what is 
happening in Bolivia, see this overview 
<https://www.thetricontinental.org/bolivia/> from Tricontinental: 
Institute for Social Research.)

Meanwhile, Morales has been in exile in Argentina. His party—the 
Movement for Socialism (MAS)—has candidates for the presidency and the 
vice presidency, but their party cadres and followers are facing a 
difficult time making their case to the people. Their radio stations 
have been blocked, their leaders arrested or exiled (or sitting in 
foreign embassies waiting for asylum), their cadre beaten up and 
intimidated.

The United Nations secretary-general’s personal envoy Jean Arnault 
released a statement 
<https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/note-correspondents/2020-02-03/statement-the-personal-envoy-of-the-secretary-general-of-the-united-nations-for-bolivia-jean-arnault> 
on February 3 that expressed caution about the elections. The situation 
in Bolivia, Arnault said, is “characterized by an exacerbated 
polarization and mixed feelings of hope, but also of uncertainty, 
restlessness and resentment after the serious political and social 
crisis of last year.” This careful language of the UN needs to be looked 
at closely. When Arnault says there is “exacerbated polarization,” he 
means that the situation is extremely tense. When he asks that the 
interim government “outlaw hate speech and direct or indirect incitement 
to violence or discrimination,” he means that the government and its 
far-right followers need to be very careful about what they say and how 
much violence they use in this election.

On February 6, Morales spoke in Buenos Aires, where he urged 
<https://www.grupolaprovincia.com/internacionales/evo-morales-convoca-a-un-acuerdo-nacional-para-garantizar-la-paz-en-las-elecciones-en-bolivia-443812> 
an end to the violence so that the election could bring the fractured 
country together. He called for a national agreement between all sides 
to end the dangerous situation. In a pointed way, Morales called upon 
the government to respect diversity, noting that people wearing distinct 
clothes and wearing the signs of a certain political party were facing 
intimidation and violence. He meant the indigenous population of 
Bolivia, and the supporters of MAS; it is widely accepted that the 
violence has been coming from the far right’s paramilitary shock troops, 
and the intimidation has been coming from the government.

For instance, the Bolivian authorities have been routinely charging MAS 
leaders with sedition, terrorism, and incitement to violence. Morales 
faced these charges, along with dozens of important MAS leaders, most 
recently Gustavo Torrico 
<https://www.notimerica.com/politica/noticia-bolivia-fiscalia-bolivia-imputa-diputado-mas-torrico-sedicion-terrorismo-incitacion-violencia-20200208030913.html> 
who has been arrested. Matters are so bad that the UN’s special 
rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Diego 
García-Sayán, took to Twitter 
<https://twitter.com/UNIndepJudges/status/1225470442682503168> to 
express his concern at the “use of judicial and fiscal institutions for 
the purpose of political persecution. The number of illegal detentions 
grows.” This has not stopped Áñez, who says she will move her government 
to investigate at least 592 people who held high office in Morales’ 14 
years in government. This means that the entirety of the MAS leadership 
will likely face harassment between now and the May 3 election.

*U.S. Interference*

In 2013, Morales expelled the U.S. government agency USAID; he accused 
USAID of working to undermine his elected government. Before that, 
Morales, as is his constitutional right, informed Salvador Romero—the 
head of the election agency (TSE)—that when his term ended in 2008, he 
would not be retained. This is a normal practice.

Romero went to the U.S. Embassy to complain. He met 
<https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07LAPAZ38_a.html> with U.S. 
Ambassador Philip Goldberg to complain about this and urged the U.S. to 
do something. It was clear that Romero and Goldberg knew each other 
well. When Romero left his post at the TSE, the U.S. establishment took 
care of him. He went to work at the National Democratic Institute in 
Honduras. The National Democratic Institute, based in Washington, is 
loosely affiliated with the U.S. Democratic Party, and is part of the 
universe that includes the National Endowment for Democracy. These are 
all U.S. government-funded agencies that operate overseas to “oversee” 
what is known as “democracy promotion,” including elections.

Romero essentially worked for the U.S. government in Honduras during the 
first election after the U.S.-instigated coup of 2009. During this 
election in 2013, violence against the supporters of Xiomara Castro, the 
candidate of the left-wing Libre Party, was routine. The day before the 
election, for instance, two leaders of the National Center of 
Farmworkers (CNTC)—María Amparo Pineda Duarte and Julio Ramón 
Maradiaga—were killed as they returned home from a training for Libre 
election workers. This was the atmosphere of this very tight election, 
which returned to power the U.S.-backed conservative candidate Juan 
Orlando Hernández of the National Party. Romero, at that time, was quite 
pleased with the results. He told 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/25/world/americas/honduras-election.html> 
the New York Times then that “despite ‘the general perception of 
fraud,’” the election was just fine.

Right after the coup in November, Áñez brought Romero back to La Paz as 
the head of the election court, the TSE. He has his old job back. This 
would have made Bruce Williamson, the U.S. charge d’affaires to Bolivia, 
very happy. The U.S. has its man at the helm of the May 3 election in 
Bolivia.

And then Trump said he is sending USAID to Bolivia to help prepare the 
ground for the election. On January 9, the USAID team arrived to “give 
technical aid to the electoral process in Bolivia.” /Technical aid/. The 
phrase should give a reasonable person pause.

Ten days later, Trump’s legal adviser Mauricio Claver-Carone arrived in 
La Paz and gave a series of interviews in which he accused 
<https://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2020/1/19/es-inaceptable-que-evo-use-argentina-para-fomentar-inestabilidad-violencia-243909.html> 
Morales of terrorism and creating instability. This was a direct attack 
at MAS and interference with Bolivia’s electoral process.

If the U.S. intervenes in Bolivia, that is just “democracy promotion.”

But even with the violence from the government and its fascistic 
paramilitaries, even with Romero at the helm of the TSE, even with USAID 
on the ground, and even with the shenanigans of Claver-Carone, MAS is 
fighting to win. The candidates for MAS are Luis Arce Catacora 
(president) and David Choquehuanca Céspedes (vice president). Catacora 
was the minister of economy and public finance under Morales and the 
architect of the administration’s economic success. Céspedes was the 
foreign minister in that government. He managed Bolivia’s policy of 
international sovereignty and is an important person to Bolivia’s 
indigenous and peasant movements. Early polls show that the MAS ticket 
is in first place.

/This article was produced by Globetrotter 
<https://independentmediainstitute.org/globetrotter/>, a project of the 
Independent Media Institute./

/*Vijay Prashad’s* most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of 
Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015)./

-- 
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