On Friday, the government showed that Mas’ candidate, Luis Arce, had won the presidential election, surpassing the “worst” moment of its 25-year history.
Last updated: Saturday, October 24, 2020 BST 20. 06
Two agonizing weeks had passed since Evo Morales was expelled from Bolivia and in the newly liberated chambers of his vice president, one of the emerging stars of his seated, discouraged and exhausted party.
“It hurts,” said Eva Copa, 32, president of the Morales Movement Senate toward Socialism (Mas), with a broken voice and tearful eyes as she reflected on what some idea might be a fatal blow to her professional. Aboriginal project. ” What happened will leave scars. “
Visibly exhausted, Copa admitted that the customers were unsafe, for his movement and Bolivia as a whole. “The last thing other Bolivians need is more chaos,” he said.
But the young senator insisted that Mas can rebuild and would. “We don’t want to restructure. What we’re going to do is reorganize,” Copa said. “We are sure that we can succeed over this. “
That well-placed religion. On Friday morning, the government showed a surprising political return with Mas’ candidate, former finance minister Luis Arce, winning Sunday’s presidential election by a margin of 26. 3%.
His closest rival in reviving last October’s cancelled poll, former centrist President Carlos Mesa, received 28. 8% of Arce’s 6. 48 million votes compared to 55. 1%. There is an 88. 4% participation record.
Bolivian sociologist Jorge Derpic recalled that at the height of last year’s turmoil, it is possible to “a general collapse” of Morales’ motion.
“That’s why this moment is so impressive and unexpected,” Derpic said. “They have demonstrated [their ability] to triumph over the worst time of their 25-year history. Not every part can [something like that], awesome.
The story of Mas’ rebound from last year’s nightmare, when security forces took Morales into exile after extending his 14-year term as president defying the 2016 referendum, has many complex threads.
But at the center of the story is a succession of impressive miscalculations and missteps in Mas’s warring parties, and especially in the interim tenure of Jeanine ‘Aez, who took hold two days after Morales left Bolivia on November 10, 2019.
As interim president, Ez had an undeniable mandate: to peacefully lead Bolivia to new elections; Instead, with the help of her internal minister, Arturo Murillo, the conservative Christian began to persecute Morales’ supporters and alienate Bolivia’s indigenous majority with a show of denigration and brutal force.
“They showed so much revenge against the Mas and the effect on [indigenous voters] was dramatic because many other people said, ‘Listen, those guys aren’t just passing by to pass after Evo, they’re passing by. ‘after anyone who looks like Evo,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian trained at Florida International University.
Derpic said the resolution to run for president – not to give up his candidacy until the second round – has sounded a new alarm. Some feared that the right would return Bolivia to the dictatorship and used Sunday’s vote to say no. of Bolivian society that, despite the disappointment, anger and frustration towards the Mas, sought to maintain democracy,” Derpic said.
But Mas’ resurrection also speaks of his own strengths: his strong connection to Bolivia’s indigenous and working-class populations, and how he has intelligently reinvented himself to regain an electorate disappointed by Morales’ refusal to relinquist power.
“They did a smart campaign . . . and probably the most vital thing to be part of Evo,” Gamarra said.
With Morales exiled to Argentina after what supporters declared a coup, Arce presented himself as an effective and considerate leader who can bring social and economic stability to a divided country facing nefarious economic clients and one of the world’s worst Covid-19 crises.
“Speak softly. It’s not antagonistic. It’s not full of anger and rhetoric, and it went well,” said Gamarra, who believed Arce’s reputation as finance minister who oversaw Bolivia’s commodity boom in the 2000s was essential.
“Jeanine may have the woman who stabilized the country,” she concluded. “Instead, I think she is now politically dead and that Murillo is likely to be charged and will have to leave Bolivia because she has let so many people down. “
An almost certain type of return is Morales, Arce insisted that Bolivia’s first indigenous president will have no role in his government.
Jim Shultz, the founder of the Bolivia-focused Center for Democracy, said a hot question about whether Bolivia joins the presidency of Arce or Morales: “I think there may be a fight for the answer. “
Morales’ prospect of exerting his influence would annoy many Bolivians, adding some Masistas who complain about authoritarian and expanding corruption in the last years of his tenure.
Derpic, however, had the idea that Arce’s triumph – which was even more convincing than the 2005 landslide that brought Morales to strength for the first time – was so convincing that it gave him the edge.
“Arce defeated not only the opposition, but also Morales,” he said. “This concept that they couldn’t win [and choose] without Morales damaged and I think it’s a smart thing for the Mas and Bolivian society at large. “
Derpic said the electorate’s message to Morales was clear: “Evo, take a break, in Argentina – or in the Chapare if you want. [But] don’t look to be the centerpiece of government. “
“I think it’s anything to celebrate, ” he said. ” We’ll see if things stay that way. “