Evo leads mass mobilization in Bolivia
Evo leads mass mobilization in Bolivia
What does division in the Movement toward Socialism (MAS) mean?
Bolivia, a landlocked country in the mountains, historically has been the poorest country in South America. It is the most indigenous country in Latin America, with approximately 60% of the population identifying themselves as pertaining to one of the several original nations of the region. In accordance with global patterns, Bolivia throughout most of its history played a peripheral role in the world-economy, supplying raw materials for the core nations on a foundation of cheap labor. Systems of forced labor were imposed following Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, which included the indigenous nations of present-day Bolivia. During the course of time, first silver, then tin, and then natural gas and petroleum were extracted and exported for the industrializing economies of the North.
From the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, Bolivia’s peripheral role existed alongside autonomous indigenous communities, which were agricultural societies with communal forms of land ownership. As the world-economy expanded, it increasingly consumed indigenous land, such that by 1930, the indigenous lands comprised only one-third of national territory, and the number of landless peasants exceeded the number of persons living in indigenous communities.
Bolivian mine workers, peasants, and factory workers formed a popular movement during the twentieth century, resulting in governments committed to the developmentalist project from 1930 to 1985. As was the case generally in Latin America, the project was forged through an alliance between the popular sectors and the national industrial bourgeoisie. It attained some concessions to popular demands and some protection of national industry, protections that did not, however, threaten the interests of foreign corporations.
Beginning in 1985, the imposition of the neoliberal project in Bolivia resulted in the elimination of the modest protective measures for the people and for national industry that had been put in place by the developmentalist project.
Let us remember who Evo is
The “process of change,” as it is called in Bolivia, was initiated in the 1990s, with mass mobilizations in opposition to the government’s neoliberal policies. The Movement toward Socialism (MAS) was established in 1995, not as a political party, but as a “political instrument,” a political organization of social organizations, designed to give voice to the indigenous peoples and peasants in the electoral process. Its principal leader was Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer who had been born and raised in a poor town in the Bolivian high plains.
From 2000 to 2006, the people’s movement intensified, with mass mobilizations, road blockings, general strikes, work stoppages, and hunger strikes, culminating in the resignation of the president in 2005 in the midst of a generalized chaos. Morales, as a presidential candidate, put forth a proposal for a new constitution that would give emphasis to Bolivian control of natural resources,
Morales was elected president on December 18, 2005, with 53.72% of the vote in the second round, becoming the first indigenous president in the history of the nation. As president, Morales demanded and obtained the renegotiation of contracts with foreign companies, which had terms more favorable to Bolivia, including the development of Bolivian capacities for the processing of natural gas and petroleum.
By 2007, a Bolivian counterrevolution had taken shape, led by owners of large estates and large economic enterprises, as well as leaders of the traditional political parties, all of whom had benefitted from the previous political-economic order. The counterrevolution is supported by transnational corporations and by the U.S. government.
In accordance with his campaign promise and a fundamental popular demand, Morales convoked a Constitutional Assembly, which assembled to begin the formulation of a new Constitution on August 6, 2006. In spite of various confrontational maneuvers by the opposition, the new Constitution was approved by popular referendum on January 25, 2009, with 61.4% of the vote.
The 2009 Constitution recognizes the autonomy of the indigenous communities, and thus it establishes the Plurinational State of Bolivia. The Constitution establishes a maximum extension of land of 5000 hectares for personal property; it guarantees access to health services, education, employment, and potable water as constitutional rights; and it prohibits the establishment of a foreign military base in the country.
The renegotiated contracts with natural gas and petroleum companies resulted in a large increase in state revenues, used to develop a variety of social programs, including programs in literacy, housing, health care, education, and credit for small farmers; and they facilitated the construction of a transportation infrastructure. The Morales government also initiated a land-reform program, beginning with the appropriation of land that was unproductive or that was fraudulently obtained, a common practice during the era of the neoliberal governments.
In spite of the opposition, Morales and MAS maintained political control for fourteen years. In 2009, Morales was reelected president of Bolivia with 64.22% of the popular vote, and MAS won a majority in the National Assembly, including a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Morales won the presidential elections of 2014 with 63% of the vote.
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The process of change interrupted
Morales was elected on October 21, 2019, to a third term under the 2009 Constitution with 47% of the vote, winning the elections on the first round on the basis of garnering more than 40% of the votes and having more than a 10% margin over his nearest rival. The Movement toward Socialism retained its two-thirds majority in the national assembly.
As is evident, electoral support for Morales was significantly less than in 2014. This softening of support was the result of an international and national campaign directed by the United States against the Morales government, through which the Bolivian opposition was able to influence citizens who were supporters neither of the revolutionary government nor the opposition. The campaign included the dissemination of fake news on the social media as well as an orchestrated religious crusade, exploiting the religious sentiments and beliefs of the people, which were directed particularly against Evo Morales. The gains of the opposition with the neither-nor sector were aided by the widely disseminated but not necessarily correct notion that presidents ought to be limited to two terms, and the general tendency of the people to expect too much from leaders of revolutionary processes, as a result of not sufficiently understanding the obstacles that processes of change confront.
A few days after the elections, on October 25, 2019, at the Fifth Conference of Strategic Studies in Havana, Dr. José Hugo Mordiz Mercado, a well-known Bolivian intellectual, asserted that prior to the elections, the opposition and the United States had formulated a plan to not recognize a Morales electoral victory, whether it be through more than 50% of the first-round votes or through the established 40% plus ten-point margin requirement, as the first step in a political-civil-military coup d’état. As the election approached, with polls indicating a 40% plus 10% margin victory by Morales, the coup planners decided on a campaign to demand a second-round election between Morales and his principal rival, Carlos Mesa. Mordiz saw the unfolding coup as a dimension of an attempt by the U.S.-directed Organization of American States (OAS) to destabilize progressive governments, seeking to exploit differences within the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
The coup plan was implemented beginning on October 20, with fascist violent gangs attacking and burning election centers, symbols of the government, and supporters of MAS. Moldiz observed that popular demonstrations against the electoral results were far less numerous than popular manifestations in support of Morales, but this did not deter the unfolding coup. International organizations were pressured by the U.S. government, and the European Union joined OAS in calling for a second-round run-off between Morales and Mesa.
The well-armed para-military groups were joined in a second stage by the police, who attached and burned the homes of peasants and MAS supporters. Threats were repeatedly made against elected government officials and union leaders, threatening to harm family members if they did not resign their charges. The Armed Forces turned their back on these developments, and the chief of the Armed Forces asked Morales to resign.
Without police or military security forces under the effective command of the democratically elected executive and legislative branches of government, Evo Morales and Vice President Alvaro García were obligated to resign, with the hope and the appeal that their resignations would stop the campaign of violence against the people and the ministers of the government. Other high members of the government also resigned, including the President and Vice-President of the Senate. Resigning simultaneously at the same press conference, the President characterized the event as a civic-political-police coup; and the Vice-President described it as an attacked on the constitutional order. The President and Vice-President vowed to continue the struggle; they stressed that they were resigning with the hope of bringing to an end the campaign of violence against the people. However, fascist violent gangs continued to pursue MAS supporters, and the homes of government ministers were ransacked during the night.
The international news media played its part, supporting the claims of electoral fraud as legitimate and calling for a second round of elections. The New York Times published an article by Jorge Castañeda, Mexico’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2003 and currently professor at New York University, which portrayed Morales’ resignation as a gain for democracy. It should be noted that months later credible investigators confirmed the claim by the Morales government that there had not been electoral fraud in the October 21, 2019, elections.
The subsequent de facto government of Jeanine Áñez lacked credibility. Linda Farthing reported from Bolivia in the December 13, 2023, issue of Nacla that Áñez’s “authoritarian and incompetent transitional government immediately unleashed the military on the unarmed demonstrators who had mobilized to protest Morales’ ouster, killing about 30 people.” There also were reports during that time that the de facto government was facilitating corruption at high levels.
But the transitional government, having no possibility to sustain itself, delivered on its promise of holding new elections, which were held in May 2020. The candidates of MAS were Arce and Choquehuanca, selected by Morales and García from their exile in Buenos Aires. Arce had been Minister of the Economy in the Morales government, and Choquehuanca had been foreign minister. An economist by education, Arce does not have strong social movement ties. Farthing writes, “Morales and his supporters always saw the new president and vice president as interim leaders. ‘It’s your turn, Luis,’ said García Linera in 2019, ‘then (leadership) passes to the legitimate owners, the peasants and Indigenous people of this country.’ But Arce and Choquehuanca were determined to govern independently. ‘The ball is in our court,’ Lucho [Arce] declared unequivocally.”
Drawing upon the lessons of the stability and economic and social gains of the Morales government and the repression of the Áñez government, the organizations of MAS were able to reassert the importance of the process of change. MAS returned to power through the 2020 electoral victory of Luis Arce, who won with 55% of the vote. Evo returned from exile, enthusiastically received by the people.
The Bolivian analyst José de la Fuente Jeria reports that there were doubts from the beginning, with Evo and his followers expecting some form of vindication, which was not forthcoming. Evo played no visible role in the returned MAS government. Arce, for his part, declared that he was there to govern, not merely to sign authorizations.
In my view, it would not be reasonable to expect Arce to be a mindless and voiceless puppet before the demands of Evo and his followers. However, some notion of a transitional caretaker government might be reasonable, taking into account Evo’s historic role in leading the process of change, and his unconstitutional removal from power, led by sectors, domestic and foreign, that did not emerge from the breast of the people and with interests opposed to the majority. Arce was an important actor in the process of change, but he was not the historical leader of the process of change, lifted up by the people in the context of the mass mobilizations of social organizations.
De la Fuente reports the division between the factions has grown during the past three years, especially in the past nine months, which he describes as an internal fracture in MAS between the followers of Evo Morales (Evistas) and the followers of Luis Arce (Arcistas), with the social organizations of MAS themselves divided. In January, the Evistas launched sixteen days of road blockings, a strategy of MAS taken during its rise to power. During the course of the year, political confrontation between the two factions continued.
In September 2023, Morales announced on the social media platform X that he will stand for the presidential elections in 2025, thus publicly confirming the division between the two factions. He declared that he was seeking the presidency in response to the attacks of the government. He noted that he was accepting the request to run again of many brothers and sisters at rallies throughout the country.
Farthing reports that in October 2023, the coco growers’ unions organized a MAS Congress. The Arcistas did not attend. Arce and Choquehuanca were expelled in absentia, and they were informed that they could not compete in the 2025 elections. Morales was named as the MAS presidential candidate, but this decision was overthrown in the courts, Farthing asserts.
Emilia Rojas Sasse reported that the October 2023 congress was not recognized by the electoral organ. The congress ratified Evo Morales as the leaders of MAS and nominated him as presidential candidate for 2025, notwithstanding the legal impediments, which the followers of Evo did not consider valid.
Differences between the two factions have emerged with respect to policy questions, particularly economic policy. The fourteen years of the Morales government was a time of economic stability, and income from the exportation of natural gas and petroleum financed an enormous social investment as well as the creation of public companies, which was the foundation for Arce’s electoral triumph in 2020 by 55% of the vote. But income from exportations have declined considerably from six billion dollars in 2013-2014 to 2.5 billion dollars today, as a result of lower production due to reduced levels of oil and gas reserves. This has led to balance of payments and state budget deficits, as well as high costs for diesel, gasoline, and food. One billion dollars are tied up in credit, which are not available to alleviate a balance of payments deficit or for financing investments in production, including investments in lithium, which will have much greater economic viability in the future. There is not a consensus concerning what adjustments ought to be made.
De la Fuente notes that in the struggle between the two factions, the Arcistas have the advantage, because they control the institutions of power. So Eva turned to the traditional strategies of struggle in MAS, the organization of a mass march of 190 kilometers, which departed from the city of Caracollo on September 17 and arrived to the Bolivian capital of La Paz on September 23. The march was a great mobilization, de la Fuente observes, demonstrating the support of Evo among the people and among the social organizations that constitute MAS.
The march did not lead to violent confrontation, as some had feared, de la Fuente noted. It ended with a political act with Evo speaking, in which he called for a resolution of the economic questions, especially the question of the high cost of diesel and gasoline. He called for the removal of three ministers of the government, whom he characterized as corrupt.
De la Fuente observed that the question can and ought to be resolved through the MAS selection of candidates for the elections at the end of 2025, in which the social organizations that constitute MAS ought to play a central role.
An interviewer of Radio Victoria de Guatemala asked de la Fuente if a new elite is emerging, if persons of the type of the previous regime are emerging, using the structures of MAS? De la Fuente did not respond to the question, and instead reiterated that the march shows the capacity of Evo to convoke social organizations. Perhaps the question was addressed by Farthing when she wrote that “Arce and Choquehuanca set up a “technocratic” administration comprised of more professionals than under Morales.”
The question of term limits
In 2016, Morales narrowly lost a referendum which would have permitted him to run for another term, in spite of the constitutional limit to the office of the presidency to two terms. However, the referendum results were distorted by a woman’s accusations against Morales, which were subsequently proven to be false, and for which she was sent to prison. Therefore, Morales and his followers do not accept the results. In 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that Morales could stand for a fourth term (third under the new constitution), on the grounds that the Constitution establishes running for office as a human right. This ruling allowed Morales to run for another term in 2019, and his narrow electoral victory was overturned by the coup d’etat. Following his return from exile, Evo’s followers maintained that the Constitution does not prohibit a presidential reelection after the passing of a term of office. However, in December 2023, the Constitutional Court issued a ruling declaring that the limit of two terms applied to reelections in either a continuous or discontinuous form, thus declaring that Evo could not again be a candidate. With this ruling, the Constitutional Court reversed its ruling of 2017, based on criteria of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which issued a ruling in 2021, at the request of Colombia, that re-election is not a human right. Morales has denounced the new ruling of the Bolivian Constitutional Court, saying that it is evidence of a complicity between the judges and the government, with the support of the Bolivian right wing.
In observing the people’s revolutions that have guided processes of change throughout the world for the past 100 years, we see that exceptional leaders emerge, capable of leading revolutions to the taking of power and to decisive steps of social transformations in defense of the people and the nation. Does not the concept of term limits, formulated in the political and ideological context of representative democracies, contradict the necessary leadership structure of people’s revolutions? Should we not, in the context of the people’s revolutions of our time, seek to educate the people, demonstrating with numerous examples that political structures without term limits can be the correct road, depending on political and ideological conditions?
Each revolutionary nation has its own road. In the cases of Cuba and Vietnam, the authority of exceptional leaders was over the course of decades institutionalized, such that the vanguard political party gradually attained the trust and confidence of the people, and they now collectively lead the people. In the case of China, three charismatic leaders have emerged, with the second and third leaders adjusting the direction of the nation, rectifying the errors of the previous leader. The historically significant cases of China, Vietnam, and Cuba indicate that long-term leadership by exceptional persons is a necessary dimension of revolutionary transformations and processes of change.
In the present stage in the development of revolutionary consciousness, many among the people identify with a leader whom they trust, but their understanding of revolutionary concepts is still in formation. For many of the people, the revolution indeed involves adherence to principles, but more than that, it involves loyalty to a leader who has earned the trust of the people.
In Venezuela, Chávez was unable to obtain popular support for a third term of office under the new Constitution. When he was dying of cancer, he had the insight to discern that Nicolás Maduro possessed the necessary qualities for leadership of the Bolivarian Revolution, so he asked the party to name Maduro as leader, should he not be able to continue. As a result, the revolution in Venezuela has made the transition to a founding leader to a successor.
In the process of change unfolding in Latin America since the beginning of the twenty-first century, we have clear evidence of the difficulties encountered with respect to term limits. When Rafael Correa stepped down in Ecuador, because of term limits, Lenin Moreno assumed direction without announcing his counterrevolutionary intentions. When Cristina Fernández had to step down in Argentina because of term limits, Macri won the presidential elections by hiding his intentions of reversing the reforms of the Kirhcners.
The importance of identification with a trusted leader was illustrated in the 2018 elections in Brazil. For many, their first choice was Lula, but when he could not be a candidate because of an unjust, politically motivated imprisonment, the second choice of many was Bolsonaro, and not the candidate of the Workers’ Party. A number of years ago, when Lula was President, and there were some questions about the reformist rather than revolutionary direction of the government, Fidel called for support of Lula not by an explanation that the process of change in Brazil under current conditions required reformist rather than revolutionary measures, but by saying that we should trust Lula. In the present stage of the evolution of human consciousness, personal identification and loyalty are important dimensions of political processes.
The process of change, in Bolivia and elsewhere, involves the formulation of concepts and principles of people’s democracy, with concepts different from those of the representative democracies that are based in the bourgeois revolutions of the late eighteenth century. People’s democracy includes the concept of exceptional leadership, necessary for the unification and the education of the people, and the ultimate institutionalization of the moral authority of the exceptional leader in a vanguard political party. It is a process that can take decades.
To be sure, the concept of exceptional leadership without term limits could be abused by false leaders interested in power. But we must search for other checks on this possibility, not the imposition of term limits, which in many cases contradicts the needs of the revolutionary process of transformation in a particular nation.
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People’s Democracy in Cuba: A vanguard political-economic system