The division within Bolivia’s left, which began at the end of 2021, turned into a literal fight last Sunday (20).
Supporters of former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) and the current president, Luis Arce, threw chairs at each other and exchanged blows with pieces of wood and other aggressions during the election of new leaders of the Unique Union Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia , in the city of El Alto. The Ministry of Health reported that around 450 people were injured in the riot, in which police officers intervened.
The conflict within the ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS) party comes about because Morales, the party’s president, intends to be a candidate again in the 2025 presidential election, while Arce plans a second term.
Last week, Gerardo García, vice president of the MAS, indicated that the party is with Morales. “He [Arce] he will have to find his own political structure, make his own party,” he said, at a press conference in which he accused Morales of “high treason”: a lawsuit by a member of his government against Morales.
The former president had already been at the forefront of a political dispute with Arce, accusing the current president’s government of corruption and protecting drug trafficking (Morales was also accused of corruption during his term and gained prominence as a coca grower leader), and the drop d’ water was an accusation against the Minister of Justice, Iván Lima.
According to Morales, a Lima law firm “defends or advises a company that is suing the state for US$35 million.” The minister stated that a defamation lawsuit would be opened against Morales, which increased the temperature of the fight between Arce and his former political godfather on the eve of the MAS congress, to be held in early October.
“When an indigenous leader denounces corruption in defense of the state, the minister known for anticipating sentences by the Constitutional Court quickly sets up a trial with an announced conviction,” Morales responded on X, the new Twitter name.
In an action that was perceived by allies of the former president as an attempt to cause embarrassment, the Minister of the Government, Fernando del Castillo, recently ordered the destruction of 26 drug factories in just three days in the province of Chapare, in Cochabamba, close to Morales’ house and his major political stronghold, with the aim of associating him with drug trafficking.
In an interview with the ANF agency, deputy Gualberto Arispe, an ally of Morales, said that this action was solely for political purposes.
“Various operations were carried out, but not a single jochi [paca,
animal comum na região] was seized. We have already said that, in all the laboratories where they intervened, the items seized were the same. We know that these operations are set up to discredit the Cochabamba region,” he said.
Throughout this week, members of the Unique Union Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia linked to Morales informed that they will block roads across the country starting September 4 if the Bolivian government does not comply with a series of demands, such as asking for “forgiveness on your knees ” for the police action during the fight in El Alto, detailing the Bolivian foreign debt and dismissing Lima and Castillo.
While the Bolivian left trades accusations among themselves, a survey released at the end of June by the organization Society of the Americas/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) placed Bolivia in 14th place out of 15 countries in its ranking of ability to fight against corruption in Latin America, ahead only of Venezuela.
AS/COA highlighted the lack of resources for the independent press to investigate cases of corruption in Bolivia and the government’s restrictions on NGOs, while expressing concern about the politicization of Bolivian justice, with the conviction of former president Jeanine Áñez to ten years in prison and the arrest of the opposition governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho.
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