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Crisis after the coup d'état POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTABILITY IN BOLIVIA Eduardo Paz Rada* The coup in Bolivia has not been consolidated. In spite of the fact that twenty-nine people have already been killed by the military and police, who were given license to do so by means of a decree approved by Jannine Áñez and her ministers, the coup regime does not possess the legal impramatur to be considered a constitutional government with the authority to govern Bolivia. This is in no small part due to the resistance of popular movements in several regions of the country. Even though the coup regime has been recognized by the United States, which promoted the coup, by Brazil, led by the ultraconservative Jair Bolsonaro, by the imperialist agent Luis Almagro of the Organization of American States (OAS) and by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, none of this has been sufficient to stabilize the coup. This is a soft coup, with characteristics of its own, a variant of those that have occurred in Brazil, Paraguay or Honduras. The Armed Forces, aided by the National Police, continues to be the central bastion of support for the self-proclaimed president, who is subject to different pressures from the following political sectors: The radicals of the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, with their leader Fernando Camacho, who have managed to give a racist and religious tone to the regime, are looking for a fast electoral process. Their party, (Movimiento Demócrata), which only received 4% of votes in the last elections and responds to the most conservative positions of Santa Cruz, intends, with several of its ministers, to adopt immediate neoliberal economic measures. Carlos Mesa, former vice-president of the ultra neoliberal regime of the nineties presided over by Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, claims to give a legal "order" to the coup d'état and wants to hold elections in the coming months. And finally we have the ultra-left "poristas”, who imagine that the "workers revolution" has arrived. Faced with these factions vying for power, Evo Morales continues to be the ghost that frightens the coup and is the axis around which Bolivian politics and society revolves, because he has, on the one hand, the loyalty of the parliamentarians who have two-thirds of the chambers of deputies and senators and, on the other hand, the popular movements in resistance. The mobilizations by the coca growers of the central region of the Chapare, by the residents of the populous city of El Alto, by the colonizers of Yapacani, by the ayllus and miners of the North of Potosí, and by the campesinos who have blocked the main highways of the country and surrounded the capitals, have become bastions of resistance to the coup, with a toll so far of twenty-nine dead, more than one hundred injured, and a similar number of detainees. These demonstrations and blockades have raised the slogans of defending democracy, demanding the return of Evo Morales, vindicating the indigenous anti-colonial flag and national Wiphala symbol and demanding the resignation of Jannine Añéz. Both the National Coordination for Change (CONALCAM) and the Bolivian Workers' Central (COB), which brings together trade union, neighborhood, worker, peasant, women's, intercultural and indigenous organizations, have become the organizational referents of the mobilizations together with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). The Chambers of Senators and Deputies, whose Presidents are Eva Copa and Sergio Choque, both representatives of El Alto, are the political wing in charge of managing the next elections. They will preside over the nomination of members to a new National Electoral Tribunal (TNE). They will need to approve the call for new national elections, although it is not ruled out that the coup regime will choose to bypass or even close the legislative Assembly outright. All the while, Evo Morales has been isolated in Mexico at the behest of the government of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. He arrived in Mexico on November 11th, after a dangerous flight boycotted by the governments of Peru and Ecuador, which denied him airspace. He was supported, however, by Alberto Fernandez, the future president of Argentina. Morales has become the reference point for Bolivian politics, as much for his base of support among the popular majority and the Legislative Assembly, as for his detractors among the middle class and those claiming to be the governing authority. *Bolivian Sociologist and member of USMA Postscript by Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky: The question is what will happen if Áñez tries to make the last leap, appoints an electoral tribunal that is clearly unconstitutional, and launches the Armed Forces to assassinate and massacre under the protective mantle of the OAS, [as Piñera does in Chile through the Special Forces?] _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
