The long battle between Evo Morales and Luis Arce for the Bolivian left’s candidacy in the next elections has entered a critical stage, in which the former president’s supporters are beginning to mobilize against the Arce government, and the latter warns that he will use the law against them. Former president Morales and a group of “Evo” leaders, including the president of the Senate, Andrónico Rodríguez, began a march along the highway that will last several days until they reach La Paz, the seat of Bolivian political power. The reasons they allege are many, but what is at stake is power. Morales is pushing to tear down the legal barriers that prevent him from registering in the next elections.
“I will not allow you to put the lives of our people at risk and I will act in accordance with what our Constitution mandates. Here I am, Evo, I will not run away. If you want to solve a problem you have with me because I did not accept being your puppet, come here, I will wait for you.” This is how Arce challenged his former political boss in a televised message broadcast on September 15 from the Casa Grande del Pueblo, the president’s office.
Morales responded, through the social network X, that his “March to save Bolivia” “is not to favor a person, as Luis Arce falsely says, it is the response of a people tired of an unconscious government, which has maintained absolute silence in the face of the crisis, corruption and the destruction of the stability we have achieved.”
The march of Morales and his followers will cover 189 kilometers on foot along the road that connects the town of Caracollo, in the south of the Altiplano, to Plaza Murillo in La Paz, where the Casa Grande del Pueblo is located. It will last about a week. There is a possibility that they will be harassed and even stopped by the “arcista” peasants in the surrounding area. After the march, on September 30, a “general road blockade” is planned. “They are not going to kill the MAS [Movimiento al Socialismo]except for my candidacy,” said Morales, summarizing the objectives of his movement.
Three years ago, the former president led a similar march, but, ironically, in defense of the Arce government, which was then clashing with the leadership of Santa Cruz, the region most opposed to the MAS. At that time, the break between the two leaders was only a possibility that was considered based on the analysis of the former president’s personality.
In his message to the nation, Arce described him as self-centered and egocentric. “Evo, you already made a mistake once, wanting to impose your candidacy, and that decision had a high cost for the people,” he said in reference to the overthrow of Morales in November 2019. “Don’t make another mistake. Bolivia needs new leadership, you need to realize that your role and mine is to promote that leadership,” he asked. At the same time, Arce has not ruled out being a candidate, although polls show him greatly weakened by the country’s economic crisis.
A group of peasants from the Altiplano, the area where the administrative capital of Bolivia is located, has begun blocking a highway, the one that connects La Paz with the city of Copacabana and the border with Peru. They are calling for Arce’s resignation and for the elections to be brought forward to August 2025. This sector considers itself “independent of both sides”, but is identified by the authorities as “evist”.
Some of the peasants involved in this roadblock, who are known as “red ponchos” and live around the road, posted a video in which they are seen with weapons from the war between Bolivia and Paraguay in the Chaco between 1932 and 1935. It is not the first time that they have shown their Mauser rifles in times of social conflict. The response of the Ministry of Government (Security) has been rigorous: it has asked that they be investigated for “terrorism and armed uprising.” The government thinks that a conspiracy is underway to shorten its mandate.
Morales’ supporters have presented the government with a “petition document,” as a list of union demands is called in Bolivia. Most of these demands are economic in nature, since the lack of dollars and fuel that the country is suffering has cornered Arce, but the central request is political: “We reject any attempt at an illegitimate, unconstitutional and rigged referendum, to partially change the Constitution with the clear and open objective of placing the economic crisis on the shoulders of the people and eliminating the candidacy of brother Evo Morales,” the document states. The authorities responded to these requests with a long letter in which they argue with the arguments of the marchers, without offering them anything.
On August 6, Arce announced that he would hold a referendum to ask the Bolivian people about fuel subsidies and whether they want to give Morales the opportunity for one more re-election or maintain his current disqualification, supposedly determined by the Constitution. The “Evistas,” for their part, describe this question as “rigged” because, in their opinion, the Constitution does not prohibit discontinuous re-election. They also denounce the attempts by the ruling party to use the Plurinational Constitutional Court to legitimize the “arcist” claim to keep the name of the party that Morales founded in the late 1990s. At this moment there are several processes surrounding a party that has never been defeated in elections since 2005.
Arce appeared on television surrounded by peasant leaders from the highlands. “Evo, you have decided to start a march, a hunger strike and a national road blockade, and you are not doing it for life, for democracy or for the economy, we all know that, but for your candidacy that you want to impose by fair means or foul, even by shedding the blood of the people,” he said.
The division of the “social movements” that make up the MAS is deep. The legal leadership is on the side of the president. Morales has in his favor his greater personal popularity among the rural electorate and in the poorest sectors of the cities. According to the latest polls, he is the politician with the highest voting intention, although also the one with the highest rejection from the population.
The centre-right opposition has criticised the fight between the two left-wing leaders as endangering the country’s stability at a time of continued economic deterioration.
Subscribe here to the newsletter of THE COUNTRY America and receive all the latest news from the region.
#Evo #Morales #marches #Luis #Arce #demands #authorization #participate #Bolivian #elections