Bolivia’s Morales announces resignation amid ongoing protests

Widely regarded as the country's first president to come from the indigenous population, his administration has focused on the implementation of leftist policies, poverty reduction, and combating the influence of the United States and multinational corporations in Bolivia.
Morales then nationalized Bolivia's gas fields and oil industry, and in November he signed into law a land reform bill that called for the seizure of unproductive lands from absentee owners and their redistribution to the poor.

The Bolivian President and his Vice President have resigned to end the U.S. backed protests in the country.

Jeanine Añez, the opposition lawmaker and second deputy senate majority leader, will reportedly serve as the country’s Interim President. She announced that she will be calling for new elections on Monday.

Internationally, under the hashtag #ElMundoconEvo (the World with Evo) progressive leaders and organizations have declared their solidarity with Evo Morales and strongly denounced the imperialist led coup which compelled Morales to resign.

In this context the President of the Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal has been arrested and the office of the Attorney General has issued warrants of arrest for the all leaders and members of the tribunal.

On Saturday opposition protesters destroyed the house of the sister of President Morales and that of two governors. They further seized two state owned media outlets. The Bolivia TV signal was also shut down for over eight hours.
Earlier on Sunday Morales, after consulting with various progressive organizations in the country, announced at a press conference in La Paz that he intends to replace the Bolivia’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal and call for another national elections.

He is said to have made this announcement soon after the audit report of Organization of American States (OAS) on the general elections of October 20 recommended that new elections be held.

“We all have the obligation to make Bolivia peaceful”, he said in response to the opposition protests against his victory in the presidential elections on October 20.

“All we have in Bolivia is the legacy of the people, and between Bolivians, we can’t come against each other to inflict harm,” he stressed.

However the rightwing opposition denounced his decision, and called for him to not stand for presidency in the new elections.

In the meantime Morales’ supporters engaged in mass action in various parts of the country in protection the country’s sovereignty against the right-wing coup by the opposition.

Beyond the fast paced developments, it’s necessary to understand the politics and background to this coup attempt, which has now undertaken a dramatic shift to the right as fascist elements within Bolivia’s right wing opposition come to the fore.

There is now an increasingly clear rupture between the minority of more moderate voices, and the fascist rhetoric of Fernando Camacho, the Santa Cruz caudillo, who has emerged as the new leadership of the right wing protest movements that seek to annul the democratic results of Bolivia’s recent elections that gave a clear victory to Evo Morales and his ‘Movement Towards Socialism’ (MAS) coalition on Sunday 20 October 2019. However, the resistance to the coup, led by indigenous communities and trade unions, has also stepped up and proved itself capable of keeping the far-right at bay.

Carlos Mesa, the neo-liberal centrist candidate who came second in October’s Presidential race with only 36% of the vote, has now lost the media spotlight to far right politician Fernando Camacho, leader of the ‘civic committee’ of Santa Cruz, the most right wing region of the country, with a history of racism against the country’s indigenous majority, the last flare up of which was the 2008 ‘Media Luna’ coup attempt that saw a wave of racist violence carried out by the ‘civic’ and ‘youth’ groups that are taking a leading role in the protest movement today.

The extent to which Mesa has lost control was laid bare on Wednesday 6 November when an important opposition rally was held in La Paz. Camacho led this event and Mesa was not even present. The chant ‘neither Evo nor Mesa’ is now common at opposition protests.

Camacho and the Civic Committees are now the leadership of the opposition protests and their politics are unambiguously extremist and fascistic. Unlike Mesa, Camacho has taken a maximalist position, meaning he does not believe in holding a second round, or holding fresh Presidential elections, he calls instead for the immediate fall of the government and the passing of state power to the supreme court until new elections can be held at which Evo Morales would be barred from running.

At the mass rallies that he has led in Santa Cruz, he always holds up a bible and recently announced that he ‘is going to restore God to the Presidential palace, from where he has been taken out [by Evo Morales]’. Religious conservatism has been a common theme for his movement. The civic committee’s last high profile protests were in 2016 against the extension of LGBT rights under Morales’ ‘Gender Identity Law’ that allowed trans citizens to change their gender on official documents.

Those loyal to Camacho’s civic committees have been carrying out egregious violence, mostly against indigenous women during the recent protests. One woman in Santa Cruz was attempting to pass an opposition roadblock on her way to visit the local cemetery when she was ‘detained’ in toilet and threatened with being burnt alive for being a ‘masista’ (government supporter) and a ‘colla’ (a racist term used against highland Andeans). She was eventually released after being forced to get on her knees and ‘apologise’ to the right wing protesters as they filmed it. Another, woman, Patricia Arce the elected socialist mayor of Vinto (a town in the Cochabamba department) was kidnapped, beaten, covered in red paint and had her hair cut off then paraded through the streets barefoot by opposition protesters, before being rescued by police.

Her words, whilst still being held captive, were caught on film and serve as an example of the bravery of the working class and indigenous Bolivians who have resisted the coup thus far, she said, “I’m not afraid of you, I tell the truth. This is a free country and I’m not going to be silenced. If you want to kill me then kill me…I’ll give my life for this process of change”.

Those resisting the coup in the streets have not been the forces of the state, but rather trade unions and indigenous communities. Miners and rural workers have flooded into La Paz and maintained a permanent presence outside the Presidential palace, so as to stop right-wing forces from seizing it, something opposition protesters have attempted to do.

The indigenous popular city of El Alto has come in swinging for Evo Morales’ government this week, holding a number of mass rallies at which social movements pledged resistance to coup.