Bolivia, located in the heart of South America, is in a state of upheaval, the ostensible reasons for which are the violent mass marches, mobilizations, and road blockades ordered by former President Evo Morales, who is warning that he will continue these protests with his large following until he is recognized as a candidate for the 2025 presidential elections. Current President Luis Arce is running for re-election. Bolivia’s Constitution prohibits a presidential third term, which has been upheld by the country’s constitutional court in the Morales case. Ignoring that ruling, Morales and his followers have been protesting for months with more marches and road blockades that have sown chaos and caused economic dislocation.
Now Morales is leading 10,000 people in a “march to save Bolivia,” from the central department of Oruro to the seat of government in La Paz on Sept. 23, where he will lodge complaints about economic problems and demand that his presidential candidacy be recognized. Violent confrontation has already occurred during the march, between followers of Morales and those of Luis Arce, with 26 people injured on Sept. 17 alone. But this is not merely an internal dispute. Bolivia has been in the crosshairs of London and Wall Street for the last few years, targeting Arce’s economic policy, whose fixed exchange-rate and commitment to an anti-colonial industrialization and economic development policy enrages these foreign financial predators. Arce is an enthusiastic supporter of the BRICS and hopes that Bolivia will join as a new member at the Oct. 22-24 BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, that he will attend.
After the State Department-organized coup against Morales in November 2019, from which he barely escaped with his life, Morales underwent a psychological change, which is self-destructive and dangerous for Bolivia, as his activities feed into foreign-run schemes to destabilize the country which he would otherwise never support. The ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party is split between Morales’s followers and those of President Arce, and through its control of the Senate, Morales’s faction has blocked approval of $1 billion in foreign credits, causing significant economic damage. Current blockades of major highways and sieges of some cities interrupt transport of exports and other economic activity, causing significant loss of revenue. There is fear that violence might ensue when the current march reaches La Paz, after which Morales warns he will begin a hunger strike until his 2025 candidacy is recognized.
On Sept. 15, President Arce addressed the nation, and Morales directly, in a very hard-hitting speech, urging him to cease his destabilizing activity and his obvious attempts to shorten Arce’s term in office, driven only by his own ambition. Documenting the economic harm he is causing to Bolivia and its citizens, Arce invited Morales to sit down and talk through his concerns. But, he warned, he won’t tolerate any attempt to cause bloodshed among Bolivians, to trample on the Constitution, or engage in coup-mongering driven by personal ambition. “Let your ego go, Evo,” he said. “I won’t allow you to place at risk” the safety of the Bolivian people, and all they have fought for. “We have a historic responsibility,” and must meet it, he said, emphasizing that the country needs new leadership, and that they both have a responsibility to ensure this new leadership emerges and should work together. But he warned Morales to stop his current campaign to destabilize the country and prevent Arce from completing his term in office. Let go of your personal ambition and petty concerns, he told Morales. Bolivia’s people and their future is at stake.
