[News] Lawfare in Bolivia: Añez wants to Jail the Favored Candidate in the Coming Elections

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.resumen-english.org/2020/06/lawfare-in-bolivia-anez-wants-to-jail-the-favored-candidate-in-the-coming-elections/
Lawfare
in Bolivia: Añez wants to Jail the Favored Candidate in the Coming ElectionsBy
Ernesto Reyes on Jun 30, 2020

<https://i2.wp.com/www.resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/7-1-bolivia-arce.jpg?ssl=1>

Bolivia’s de facto president, Jeanine Añez, is losing more and more of her
mask obscuring democracy that, with the complicity of the United States and
the European Union, she had to put on to justify the violent overthrow of
Evo Morales in November of last year.

Now, in a flagrant demonstration that in Bolivia there are no
constitutional guarantees and that persecution is the rule of order, a coup
is being prepared against the presidential candidate of the Movement Toward
Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce Catacora.

In a confirmation of the validity of the lawfare method (judicial war)
against popular leaders, the legal form of this anti-democratic political
decision is the criminal complaint filed this Tuesday before the Public
Prosecutor’s Office against Arce for the alleged economic damage he caused
to the State by setting up the *Gestora Publica* for the administration of
workers’ social contributions.

This is not the first time that a position of aggression has been assumed
against the MAS candidate since he returned to Bolivia after a brief stay
in Mexico. On the same day of his arrival in La Paz on January 28, at the
El Alto airport, he was given a summons to testify in the case of the
Indigenous Fund. This Tuesday the action is more convoluted at a time when
Morales’ former economy minister is leading the entire field of candidates
for president in the upcoming elections scheduled for September 6.

Anez’s action is not, however, a surprise. The de facto government is doing
everything in its power to extend its illegal takeover last November 12,
2019, after a meeting between the ambassadors of the European Union, Leon
del Torre, and Brazil, Octávio Henrique Dias García Côrtes, and other
political and civic organizations celebrated at the Bolivian Catholic
University (UCB) facilities to give some legitimacy to the coup. It was not
surprising that a few hours later the governments of the United States and
Brazil recognized the de facto president.

The most supportive weapon for the extensionist aspirations of Añez and her
collaborators is the coronavirus epidemic, whose expansion until now has
not been able to be controlled due to the absence of any coherent
government plan and the enormous deficit of respirators and biosecurity
material, amid allegations of corruption in the purchase of this vital
equipment.

The reaction of Arce and MAS and the measures he will take in legal terms
are not yet known, but social organizations have already been preparing to
resist the intention of the de facto government to ban MAS from
participating in the elections.

The government’s repressive policy has not changed one iota since the coup
d’état and it is likely that the mounting of “false positives” will
continue to rise to justify a new wave of violence. What has changed is the
social willingness, mainly of the social organizations, which are in a
stage of re-composition and becoming increasingly cohesive, to demand the
general elections be held as scheduled.

Source: Plurnacional
<https://plurinacional.info/2020/06/30/lawfare-en-bolivia-anez-quiere-encarcelar-al-candidato-favorito-luis-arce-del-mas/>,
translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau
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