Bolivian President Luis Arce and former President Evo Morales raise hands during a ritual to celebrate the winter solstice in Tiwanaku, Bolivia, June 21, 2023. Gaston Brito Miserocchi (Getty Images)
The split in the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Bolivia’s ruling party, has turned into open war. Last weekend, a congress of farmers’ unions was held which, after a fierce fight in which 450 people were injured and police intervention, ended with the promulgation of two different directives: one by Luis Arce’s government and another by former President Evo Morales. These are the leaders fighting for control of the party and to lead the left candidacy in the 2025 elections. The MAS is not a conventional party: it is made up of Bolivian social organizations.
Days earlier, the justice minister announced that he would indict Morales for defamation, who had accused him of manipulating the judiciary for personal gain. This marked the escalation of a conflict that began two years ago, shortly after Arce came to power.
“On the orders of President Luis Arce, political actors from the government and the police have carried out a criminal attack” against the Farmers’ Congress, Morales wrote on a social network. Morales denounced that police fired tear gas at the Coliseum in the city of El Alto, where the meeting was taking place. The government rejected this claim. According to the authorities, those who activated gas grenades in the middle of an early morning meeting were drunk delegates from the “radical wing”, supporters of Evo Morales. The press reported that two groups of peasant delegates clashed with bladed weapons, bottles and sticks. There were 450 minor injuries and one police officer was hospitalized for a serious injury.
The verbal fight has also intensified. “If Luis Arce wants to be president, he should look for another party,” said recently Gerardo García, vice-president of MAS and member of the “evista” group. García has repeatedly pointed out that “MAS is not in government”. Now Morales himself has adopted that discursive tone after months of avoiding a direct confrontation with President Arce. He not only blamed him for the conflict in the Peasants’ Congress, but also stated that the trial against him, which Justice Minister Iván Lima had announced and which he described as “strictly personal”, was in fact the result of an order from Arce. Lima is trying to defend his honor after being accused by the former president of influencing the conduct of the courts in coordination with the law firm he owned before he was elected minister. This office, now headed by his brother, is involved in lawsuits against the state. “You should find a good lawyer,” he advised Morales.
The announcement of this trial, which has not yet taken place, provoked an angry reaction from the supporters of the indigenous leader, who attacked the minister involved and the government with all artillery. So they answered. The allegations of “collaborating with drug trafficking”, “corruption”, “breach of word”, “right-wing extremism”, “dissension” and “treason” flow from one side to the other. Evismo also says that the government is arresting some of its leaders, including the governor of Potosí, who is currently in prison; The officials deny this, pointing out that the arrests were ordinary judicial matters.
Both President Arce and the country’s Vice President David Choquehuanca attended the opening ceremony of the Farmers’ Congress. They were booed from part of the auditorium. As Arce spoke, someone unknown sabotaged the sound system. Due to the disorder of the Congress, which was attended by hundreds of delegates, it is difficult to determine which sector had the majority.
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An important meeting will take place in October on the fate of the divided Bolivian left. Evo Morales has convened a MAS Congress in his stronghold of Chapare to renew the party’s leadership and choose the presidential candidate. The ruling faction rejects the proposed venue and raises legal objections to the electoral authority. Some observers assume that there will be two Congresses and that, just like the union organisations, there will be two MASs, one led by Morales and the other by Arce. The issue will then fall into the hands of the electoral court, which must decide which of these two groups is legal and which must change its acronym. The competition with the name and traditional flags of Bolivia’s largest party is very important to win the support of the country’s voters, who have consistently voted for these symbols for 20 years.
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