▲ Evo Morales, former ruler of Bolivia, in an image from October 2021.Photo Marco Peláez

Aldo Anfossi

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, November 26, 2024, p. 21

Santiago. Evo Morales Ayma, from 65 years old, the former president who led the destinies of Bolivia for 13 consecutive years between 2006 and 2019, when he resigned after a military coup d’état, is convinced that he has sufficient social support and the necessary political experience to rescue his country, Now bogged down in an economic and institutional crisis, it is imperative for him to return to power for a fourth term.

He bases this enthusiasm on a battery of data that, he asserts, demonstrates how during his three governments he promoted growth and progress, significantly reducing poverty and giving dignity to the indigenous population, more than 60 percent, defining Bolivia as plurinational.

Politically we seek refoundation, economically nationalization and socially redistribution. We are no longer a colonial State, plurinationality is union and diversity to face adversity. Cultural diversity is the richness of our identity and dignityhe maintains.

It mentions, for example, that in 2005 public investment was barely 600 million dollars, while in 2019 it aimed at 8 billion dollars; that the gross domestic product went from 9 billion to 42 billion dollars; that extreme poverty fell from 38 percent to less than 14.

Now they have returned it to 36 percenthe states in a telephone conversation with The Day from the town of Lauca Ñ, in Cochabamba.

“What are the people asking for? The people say: ‘Evo has to save Bolivia again.’ But it is not Evo, it is the unity of the people, it is the political instrument, it is the vote of the people,” he affirms, to justify returning to govern, a goal that has him engaged in a fierce internal fight within his party with his former minister of Economy, President Luis Arce, today his worst enemy, with whom he disputes the control and candidacy of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS).

Rejects ruling against his application

Morales rejects a recent resolution of the Constitutional Court that confirmed that he will not be able to be a presidential candidate in 2025, because he has already served the two terms, consecutive or not, provided for by law. He accuses that the magistrates’ mandates expired in December 2023 and that they illegally extended their functions. And he accuses that they are venal judges, who have ended corruption proceedings that affect Arce’s associates.

Judge elections are scheduled to be held in December, but Morales denies them legitimacy because they will be partial.

This election is totally unconstitutional, unethical and undemocratic because the Constitution establishes that elections must be unique and exclusive. In some departments, such as Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, there are only two candidates for the Plurinational Constitutional Court; they must be two women, two men and one indigenous person. Institutions are not really respected here, we are living a dictatorshipcomplaint.

–What happens if at the time of registration of the candidatures yours is not accepted? How are you going to act?

–The people will decide. This is political persecution, after the September march the trials begin, I am 14. A MAS government allied with the empire, the right and many media outlets, all against the Indian, hatred of the Indian, they do not accept that an Indian can lead Bolivia.

–When he says what the people decidethat suggests that the country could enter a much worse upheaval? Are you willing to do it?

–I organized peaceful marches, that has been my behavior, that is why I grew politically in the union and electoral struggle. The people are mobilized and marching permanently. There is almost no fuel, the country is paralyzed. The president’s task is to give happiness to the people and for that we must guarantee security and economic stability; If that is achieved, there is political stability. The difference with the current government is corruption, including family corruption, poor management, protection of drug trafficking and a lot of arrogance.

“class struggle”

–Álvaro García Linera, who was its vice president, said that in the popular national bloc there is a loss of strategic horizon, of real adversaries and an involvement in personalized struggles.

–I can’t understand, thanks to me he was vice president, for 14 years he didn’t have a problem, then he speaks against me. That in a meeting he says: ‘Evo cannot be a candidate because he is not professional’ hurts me a lot. If I had been your vice president for 14 years and you disagreed, I would speak alone. The last time I spoke to him was last year, on the phone. I told him that if it wasn’t with me he would never have been vice president; and this is a class struggle, I am Indian, you are not.

–Is there racism, xenophobia, against you in certain leadership?

-Completely.

–The lack of unity on the left has sunk governments and processes. How did it come to that in Bolivia?

-Please! Lucho’s government is not leftist. Look, during the June self-coup, how is it possible that the United States embassy defended Lucho; Where in the world does Washington defend a leftist president?

“Lucho takes over and reduces four ministries, at that moment I said, I think he is going to go to the right. It is well known that it is the recipe of the World Bank, of the International Monetary Fund, to shrink the State, so it does not invest, the transnationals do it. The policy of economic contraction and now free importation of wheat and rice, zero tariffs, one hundred percent neoliberal. They are ideological, programmatic differences.

–So, zero chance of you and him making peace?

–I struggle is a sum that subtracts. They are trying to destroy me ethically, morally, legally and politically.

“He tried to physically end my life. Evo has 26 percent support, Arce has 2.2 percent. It has already destroyed Bolivia and damaged the MAS, what left, what alliance could it be if it is a sum that remains?