Nearly a year after Bolivian President Evo Morales fled his country amid the turmoil caused by his alleged attempt to borrow a fourth term, his party is about to return to power, claiming a decisive victory in a high-risk presidential election and we were. for the far left of the country.
The new leader of the Movement for Socialism, Luis Arce, a 57-year-old former Minister of the Economy, obtained 52. 4% of the votes, according to a personal vote by two stations. However, projections place Arce well ahead of former centrist president Carlos Mesa, with 31. 5%. Arce, whose technocratic taste sets him apart from Morales’ populist touch, needed a 50%, a ten-point advantage over the moment-place candidate, to win round.
The electoral race is tense in Bolivia: the right-wing interim government, which gained strength after the removal of Morales, delayed the vote twice, causing the COVID-19 pandemic, delays, combined with provocative adjustments in foreign policy and Bolivia’s secular state Procedures and interim president Jeanine Aez’s resolution to run for president had fueled fears that the interim government would take power on its own, but Aez congratulated Arce on Monday. I ask the winners to rule with Bolivia and democracy in mind, ”he said on Twitter.
The result foreshadows a stronger ending for a chaotic year in Bolivia, says Christopher Sabatini, senior researcher for Latin America at Chatham House and founder of Americas Quarterly. “It’s a sign that Bolivian democracy is strong,” he said. “The result shows that MAS is not a non-public device [for Morales]. This attests to the fact that the other Bolivian people make possible choices not necessarily in the rulers, but in pragmatic lines. “
Here’s what you want to know about the effects of elections in Bolivia.
A former trade union leader of the industry and the first president to belong to Bolivia’s gigantic indigenous population, Morales spent a record thirteen and a half years in force and gained great popularity, presiding over strong economic growth, poverty alleviation and the expansion of indigenous rights. asked the electorate to grant him the right to amend the letter to allow him to run for a fourth term in a referendum in 2016, 51% said no.
Morales did forget that vote, and in October 2019 he ran for re-election anyway. At the time of the vote count, Morales seemed to address a voting circular with centrist Mesa. But then the electoral government suspended the vote. When they restarted, Morales had enough votes to avoid a circular so far, mass protests broke out, led by right-wing business leaders in Santa Cruz and election observers from the Washington-based Organization of American States in Morales’ vote percentage, an “unexplained change. “Under increasing pressure, Morales resigned and fled Bolivia.
Morales and his supporters accuse the United States, multinational companies, and the OAS of accepting Morales’ expulsion, based on a long history of U. S. interventions opposed to left-wing governments in Latin America. A New York Times investigation later revealed that the OAS’ initial statistical investigation of the election, announced hours after Morales’ victory and a first push for protests against Morales , wrong, however, the examination through independent investigators did not brag evidence of voter fraud published through the OAS in December.
Known as “Lucho,” Arce served as Morales’ economy minister and led the nationalization of the mining industry, contributing to the administration’s good economic fortune as commodity costs increased in the 2000s. With a master’s degree in economics from the University of Warwick in the UK, Arce is “one of the few technocrats in DSS,” Sabatini says. “His head has been raised and, from what I have noticed, he is not participating in incendiary rhetoric. “
In his first speech following the election results, Arce said he would build a national unity government. “We will paint and resume the replacement procedure without hatred, and we will be informed and triumph over our mistakes as MAS. “
He did not leave the Bolivian political scene after his convulsive departure from office. From Argentina, where the left-wing government granted him political asylum, the former president made a series of interventions in the campaign. Through Twitter and media interviews, he reported the situation. The United States, the interim government, has already called the DSS’s critical media “enemy number one. “When he announced the MAS victory on Monday, Morales said he would return to Bolivia “sooner or later. “
Marcelo Arequipa, professor of political science at the Catholic University of Bolivia, says that the MAS crusade overcame last year’s controversy for two reasons: “The first was a spirit of self-criticism that was vital for Evo Morales and his entourage. “Although Arce was Morales’ chosen successor and agreed with his former chief that the interim government had “taken force by force,” he distanced himself from the most incendiary statements of his former crusade. , opposed Morales’ resolve to run for a fourth term and promised that Morales’ inner circle would not be harsh in the new DSS administration.
This estating allowed the DSS to communicate about the positive economic legacy of Morales’ years, and Arce’s role in it, while attracting an angry electorate for the inauguration of the former president.
The “anti-MAS” parties, adding the centrist alliance of Mesa’s citizen network and small right-wing forces, Says Arequipa, have focused their campaigns “more on the concern [of the MAS’s return to power]. They acted as if they were politicians They were the ultimate, when we know that this year the economy is the best
Right-wing forces have long struggled to break into Bolivian politics. The incumbent president and right-wing senator Aez abandoned her crusade in September when it became clear that she had no popular support. Luis Fernando Camacho, a right-wing Catholic lawyer who led the anti-Morales protest last year, won 14. 1% of the vote, according to personal polls. A poor country, Bolivia does not have the tough business sectors or the middle categories that tend to shape the core of the center. right-wing or right-wing parties in other Latin American countries, says Sabatini
Arce’s first priority will be to deal with the physical condition and economic consequences of the pandemic. Bolivia has suffered more than 139,000 cases and more than 8,500 deaths in a population of 11 million people, which puts it in the crowd for infection rates consistent with millions of people in Latin American countries, but the economy in much of Bolivia has been greatly affected by quarantine measures , and an economic downturn of nearly 6% is expected until the end of 2020. La the government’s ability to revive expansion and protect vulnerable sectors – key to what boosted DSS’s popularity in morales’ years, is probably to uncover Arce’s good fortune in government, analysts say.
Last year’s political turmoil appears to be waning, but to secure strong government, Arequipa says Arce will have to fulfill his promise to build unity and reach the tables to build strong alliances with politicians, unions, and the business community. I just got out of extensive political care,” he says. When you leave extensive care, you don’t go straight home. You have to recover. This will mark what happens next. “