By Robert Albro*

March in favor of Evo Morales /Flickr/ Creative Commons/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/santiagosuburbano/49098960458/

Bolivia’s streets have been calmer in recent days, but actions by self-proclaimed President Jeanine Áñez have raised legitimate concerns about what sort of transition Bolivians face after the almost 14-year presidency of Evo Morales. The protests, marches, and violence that have characterized the aftermath of the disputed presidential election on October 20 have left at least 33 people dead – including 30 since Áñez took office and soon thereafter issued a presidential decree (since rescinded) giving security forces immunity from prosecution when engaged in restoring “order.” While Áñez has claimed she is a caretaker whose only charge is to organize new elections within 90 days, she has not behaved like one.

• Previously an obscure backbencher and opposition senator from an inconsequential political party representing remote Beni, Áñez had planned to retire from politics at the end of her term. Her position as second vice-president of the Senate was largely ceremonial, with little control over budgets. Down the list of constitutional succession, she became acting president only after multiple Morales administration officials resigned.
• Although unelected and lacking a mandate, Áñez has taken a series of decisive steps to undo Morales’s legacy. A conservative Christian and Morales critic, she has proclaimed Bolivia a “Catholic country” and disparaged its Indigenous majority as “irrational.” She has surrounded herself with a cabinet composed of like-minded critics from Bolivia’s eastern lowlands. This region includes the departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Pando and Beni, together often called the Media Luna (Half Moon), and is the heartland of economic elites whose political power was substantially diminished by Morales’s rise. In 2008 the Media Luna was for months in open revolt against Morales and his government, contending for control of the country’s considerable natural gas revenues. Often cast in racist terms, these elites consistently and categorically rejected Morales’s presidency.

As interim president, Áñez has replaced the military’s leadership, cabinet ministers, and heads of major state-owned companies with her own appointees. She reestablished ties with Washington, severed relations with Venezuela, kicked out Cuban doctors working in the country, and is considering Bolivia’s withdrawal from the largely-defunct UNASUR. Áñez has not sought conciliation with lawmakers from Morales’s MAS party, who still command a legislative majority. Instead, seeming to turn to the playbook of the country’s and the region’s dictatorial past, her administration has accused Venezuela and Cuba of supporting subversive groups in Bolivia, threatening to prosecute former government officials now in hiding and to charge MAS lawmakers and journalists critical of her policies with “sedition.”

These moves do not bode well for an orderly electoral do-over. Luis Fernando Camacho, the Santa Cruz civic committee leader who has emerged as Áñez’s vocal and controversial far-right supporter, already seems to be in campaign mode, despite his scant political credentials. Political moderate and second-place finisher in last month’s election, Carlos Mesa, appears to be largely sidelined. Morales himself has been legally barred from participating, and MAS, while still a political force in Bolivia, lacks an obvious figure to replace him. Meanwhile, Áñez and the far-right cabal gathering around her appear to be gearing up for hardball politics, although they lack legitimacy among Morales’s supporters and the many citizens who might have grown tired of Morales but view with alarm the actions and tone of the new caretaker government. The election may be technically wide open, but Bolivia’s far-right appears intent on seizing this opportunity to restore its influence.

• By alienating the country’s Indigenous majority and exacerbating latent ethnic and class tensions, while signaling a commitment to reverse the gains made during the Morales years, Áñez is setting up conditions for a period of intense social conflict. If present trends continue, it is hard to imagine that in 90 days, and perhaps for a lengthy period thereafter, Bolivia won’t again experience more paroxysms comparable to what it has endured since October’s contested election.

December 6, 2019

* Robert Albro is the Research Associate Professor at CLALS.