by Cassandra Howarth
As the much-delayed Bolivian election approaches, and with the presidential candidate of Evo Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) way ahead in the polls, the right-wing coup government that seized power a year ago is panicking. The mass mobilisation of the Bolivian working class has blocked any hope of postponing the vote for a fourth time, and so it is resorting to every dirty trick in the book to attempt to maintain its illegitimate hold on power.
On 16 September, a major poll carried out by the Jubileo Foundation confirmed that, on current trends, Luis Arce of MAS would comfortably win the presidential election in the first round, with 40.3% of the vote. His nearest rival, the ‘centre-right’ figurehead Carlos Mesa of Civic Community, is on 29.2%. Candidates need 40% of the vote, with a 10% lead, to avoid a run-off in November. On 17 September, the unelected interim president Jeanine Añez, trailing in fourth place on 7%, announced that she was withdrawing her candidacy to avoid splitting the right-wing vote. The neo-fascist Luis Camacho, who led last year’s coup against the socialist president, Evo Morales, is on 10.9%. The youth wing of Añez’s political party has announced it will support Camacho.
Having stolen last year’s election through violence and lies, it is clear Bolivia’s coup government fears being exposed to democratic scrutiny. It has already attempted to stave off electoral defeat three times by simply postponing the election, conveniently citing the coronavirus pandemic. But when the 6 September election – postponed from May – was once again cancelled, the Bolivian working class had had enough. From the end of July onwards, mass mobilisations by unions and indigenous organisations brought large parts of the country to a standstill. Blockades, strikes and marches were organised across Bolivia, calling for the immediate resignation of the Añez regime and for the September election to go ahead. The indigenous organisations had sworn to maintain their actions until the election was held. Under pressure, the government passed emergency legislation guaranteeing no further postponement beyond 18 October – a concession that fell far short of the movement’s demands. But the compromise was accepted by Bolivia’s largest trade union federation, Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and the mass mobilisations were called off. Although the COB has played a major role in organising working class resistance to the coup government, this is not the first time it has compromised at crucial moments. After last year’s October election, as Bolivia was wracked by orchestrated rightwing violence in the lead-up to the coup, the COB added its voice to those publicly demanding Morales’ resignation. COB’s political stance reflects its base – a better-off section of the working class who benefit from stable jobs and a regular income, whose interests are at odds with MAS’s core supporters, the rural poor and majority indigenous working class. It is the latter who benefited most under Morales, who have suffered the most under the coup government and who have no choice but to fight back.
Coup government raises the stakes
What the coup government cannot win by fair means, it will continue to try to win by foul. It is already churning out propaganda – much of it with an eye to its ‘liberal’ supporters in the international bourgeois press, such as The Guardian, whose constant attacks on Evo Morales helped usher the right wing into power. It has fabricated accusations against Morales of inappropriate sexual relations with a minor and asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Morales and MAS for crimes against humanity, accusing them of co-ordinating the blockades that took place over the postponed election with the bogus claim that these were intended to prevent coronavirus victims from receiving medical care. It has used the courts to prevent the exiled Morales from standing as a senator in his native stronghold of Cochabamba. Even the pro-imperialist Human Rights Watch recently accused the coup government of using the justice system as a weapon, documenting dozens of instances of baseless or disproportionate charges, due process violations, infringement of freedom of expression, and excessive and arbitrary use of pretrial detention. In one case, Morales’ former chief of staff, Patricia Hermosa, has been charged with terrorism and sedition for making a phonecall to him after he went into exile. She was arrested in January and held in pretrial detention without access to medical care while pregnant. She had a miscarriage in March, and was not released until August.
Political opponents to the regime are still being persecuted. Most recently, on 19 September, a lawyer supporting families of victims of last November’s Senkata massacre of indigenous people by the Bolivian military was arrested outside court. Right-wing thugs have attacked MAS rallies, burning supporters’ tents, and setting fire to the indigenous Wiphala flag.
These are the same tools that Bolivia’s viciously reactionary, wealthy elite used last year to force Evo Morales out of power. They were backed to the hilt by imperialism, in particular the Organisation of American States, a US proxy, whose claims of fraud based on a totally discredited ‘audit’ of the October 2019 election results provided spurious cover for the coup. According to US media, Carlos Trujillo, the US ambassador to the OAS, ‘had steered the group’s election-monitoring team to report widespread fraud and pushed the Trump administration to support the ouster of Morales’.
It is clear that the ruling class will not give up power willingly and even if it loses the election, will continue to sabotage and undermine any future progressive, socialist and democratic government. Only the continued resistance of the Bolivian working class and oppressed, especially the rural poor and indigenous communities, can stop them.