Latin America abandoned military dictatorships as a system of government in the 1980s. Then, through truth commissions, judges and transitional courts, which dealt with the recognition and reparation of victims, they managed to exorcise the authoritarian demons that had taken hold of the continent since the 1960s. Thanks to these exercises in truth, reparation and justice, countries were able to call elections that reestablished their democratic vocation and allowed citizens to freely elect their leaders.
Since then, more than a hundred general elections have been held in Latin America and the Caribbean. Many of us thought we were forever vaccinated against military dictatorships. Until today, when autocratic episodes have begun to appear that question the path of democratic continuity. The invasion of the Planalto Palace in Brasilia by Bolsonarism. The electoral coup against Evo Morales who ignored, with the help of the OAS, the results of the first presidential round in December 2019 when the Bolivian people elected him as president. The judicial tricks and traps of the corrupt against the legitimate right of Bernardo Arévalo to govern cleanly in Guatemala. Nayib Bukele’s constitutional coup d’état in Salvador to explain his illegitimate re-election. The raid of the Mexican Embassy in Ecuador by military forces serving Daniel Noboa. The systematic demolition of Argentine institutions in which Javier Milei is committed and, of course, the invasion of the Washington Capitol by the Trumpists, who were judicially condemned.
All of this is evidence that, as someone pointed out, totalitarian temptations are still alive in Latin America. Although in Bolivia, in the past, the overthrow of predecessors was an accepted form of change of government, for several years now the majority of Bolivian opinion has shared the general idea that the region, in recent years, has managed to vaccinate itself against the military coups of the 1960s and is turning to new democratic spaces. What happened this week with the improvised rebellion of General Zuñiga in Bolivia shows that the rightward drift of the continent and its complicit sympathy with European right-wing forces such as VOX and the PP in Spain or Marine Le Pen in France, could lead the region back to a dangerous scenario of anti-democratic governments inspired by the same script that includes: xenophobia, climate denialism, punitive populism, regressive taxation, disregard for the rights and guarantees of minorities, and a heavy hand in responding to demonstrations of social discontent without delving into, much less remedying, their causes.
Precisely what Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Evo Morales in Bolivia achieved during the years of democratic socialist government, with the very effective help of a team of qualified professionals such as Luis Arce, was to demonstrate that it was possible to achieve the satisfaction of objectives, apparently antinomic, such as: growth and equality, lower inflation and more employment, civil guarantees with social inclusion, and coexistence of the defense of national sovereignty with regional integration.
Morales and Arce, during their governments, added to this virtuous recipe of a new Solidarity Model of Economic Development the use of natural resources such as gas, and now lithium, with the largest world reserve of this mineral in the Salar de Uyuni. The problem is that they are now divided regarding the next presidential succession, which has clouded the spirits among the friends and empowered the right-wing forces, especially the radical ones, who have seen the possibility of returning by passing through the middle of these divided brothers. I am sure that both will understand that the future of peace and progress in Bolivia are closely linked to the unity of the Movement (MAS) in which both are active.
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