Bolivia: Clean Break or Coup?
Image Source: https://www.lavoz.com.ar/mundo/estiman-millonarias-perdidas-por-protestas-en-bolivia
By: Tommy O’Donnell
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the KCL Latin American Society or El Cortao.
Bolivia is in turmoil. In the final few months of 2019, the small South American nation had faced two constitutional crises; one of which was arguably caused by the ‘resolution’ of the other. There are two key figures involved in these crises whose names you need to have engraved in your mind if you want to have the first (or second) clue about the current state of Bolivia: Evo Morales and Jeanine Áñez, the former and current Presidents of Bolivia respectively.
To make sense of this conflict, it is crucial to dissect it in two parts. It must be noted that although each section is titled; ’Clean Break’ and ‘Coup’ respectively, this is not an endorsement of the accuracy of those terms. This article aims to discuss and determine the democratic legitimacy of these protests’ outcomes and answer the question: is Bolivia experiencing a clean break or a coup?
PART ONE: CLEAN BREAK
If we really want to go from the very beginning we need to go back to early 2016. Pre-Brexit, pre-Trump and pre-general global chaos, Bolivia had got stuck into its own electoral debate: should the constitutional article limiting presidential terms to two be amended to allow for limitless presidential terms. On 21st February voters narrowly said no with 51.3% of the referendum vote, forbidding the incumbent Evo Morales from seeking a fourth term; his first term began in 2006 before the new 2009 constitution, meaning the two-term limit did not apply. Although voters rejected Morales’s proposal, in December 2017 the courts had a different point of view. They cited Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights, ruling that no public office would have term limits, despite what the country’s own constitution says, clearing the way for Morales’s attempt at a fourth term in office.
Fast forward a little under two years. The incumbent President Morales is facing off against former President Carlos Mesa in Bolivia’s 2019 general election, with the public’s trust of the electoral system being chipped away after the overruling of the 2016 referendum. Shortly after the polls closed, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal releases two sets of results; firstly, an exit poll which estimates how many votes each candidate received by asking voters as they leave polling stations, and shortly after, a ‘complete provisional result’ which counts actual votes from the ballot boxes. Bolivian electoral laws state that a candidate needs to be 10% ahead of their opponent in order to avoid a second run-off election, however Morales’s lead over Mesa was less than that in both the exit poll and the provisional result—in fact, the ‘complete provisional result’ showed an even closer result than the exit poll with Morales in front by only 7.1%.
So both candidates conceded and the country went to a second run-off election, right? Wrong! At 7:40pm, the preliminary results were updated for the final time by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, claiming that this was because “official results were beginning to be released”. However, without any evidence of a clear victory, Evo Morales declared at 9:25pm that same evening that he was the winner, and that although he would await final scrutiny, the remaining rural votes would guarantee his victory. He forgot to mention one phrase, however: run-off.
Almost 24 hours after the final update to the preliminary results, more than 95% of votes had been counted and these results were published; Morales had managed to win 10.14% more votes than his rival Mesa, and thus the need for a second run-off election was nulled. At least that is what Morales and his party said. The opposition were not so convinced and published a 190-page-long report detailing multiple accusations of fraud. And now here’s where things get messy.
Protests. Lots and lots of protests. Much of the Bolivian electorate was as convinced as the opposition of Morales’s outright victory, and news stories of pro-Morales ballots being pictured in the hands of non-electoral officials only stoked the belief that the incumbent’s victory was illegitimate. Of course, the police reaction was not friendly, leading to the deployment of tear gas against residents and protesters, eventually ending up with police-civilian violence and attacks on Morales’s party’s campaign offices. Clashes between pro-Morales and anti-Morales protesters were common and contentious, and the protests in favour of a second run-off election reached fever pitch on 25th October, the day after the final election result was published, showing a Morales victory with a margin upwards of 10%. By this point several of Bolivia’s Latin American neighbours, the United States, and the European Union had all called for the second round of elections to go ahead, regardless of the eventual result, and on the evening of the 25th protesters filled the streets of the Bolivian capital chanting “Bolivia no es Cuba ni Venezuela”: Bolivia is not Cuba, nor Venezuela.
Protesting continued and showed no sign of slowing down, and by 7th November the government had announced the deaths of three people as a result of the protests. Meanwhile, the Organisation of American States (OAS) had been conducting an independent investigation into the electoral conduct of Bolivia’s general election. On 10th November they published their report which had found serious technical irregularities, and stated that Morales crossing the 10% threshold would have been highly unlikely. The OAS recommended another electoral process, echoing the sentiments of the U.S. and the EU, however lines started to blur when the commander-in-chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces, General Williams Kaliman called for Morales’s resignation to “help restore peace and stability”. Morales complied and resigned later that day from a secret location.
PART TWO: COUP
“Coup”. A big word used by major global politicians, such as Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to describe the end of Evo Morales’s presidency. With the former President hopping on a plane to accept Mexican President Obrador’s offer of asylum, acting President of the Bolivian Senate, Jeanine Áñez called an extraordinary session of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly in order to ratify the resignation of Morales and declare herself President of the Senate and consequently acting President of Bolivia. As you can imagine, Morales’s party Movement for Socialism (MAS) were not happy. They chose to boycott this gathering of the Assembly and did not recognise Áñez’s new roles as legitimate. Nonetheless, the move by Áñez was upheld by the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal.
This is where the narrative began to change. The protests transitioned from being strongly anti-Morales to strongly pro-Morales, which can be largely be attributed to the increase in indigenous protesters in the ex-President’s favour—and perhaps just as importantly, against the incumbent-President.
It is important in the context of the conflict to understand the complicated nature of indigenous politics in Bolivia. Indigenous Bolivians make up approximately 20% of the country’s population, with heritage spread amongst 36 ethnic groups—Aymara and Quechua being the largest. Additionally, 68% of the population is mestizo, meaning they have both indigenous and European heritage. Naturally, as a post-colonial state, Bolivia’s indigenous population had faced innumerous injustices at the hands of Western imperialists, however Evo Morales was seen as a symbolic turning point for them, with Morales himself being Aymara. He attempted to establish a ‘plurinational’ state and expand collective indigenous rights, exemplified in the 2009 constitution which recognised the presence of different communities in Bolivia and allowed ancestral indigenous territories to be self-governed.
But of course, anti-indigenous discrimination did not just disappear overnight after the election of Morales, which acting-President Áñez would know well. She previously made comments on social media calling the Aymara New Year celebration “satanic”, as well as calling indigenous people wearing shoes “inauthentic”. It’s worth mentioning that Áñez has denied making these comments, but independent fact checkers have shown the contrary to be true.
Snapping back into the present situation, the city of La Paz had become flooded with protesters clashing with police, military and opposition forces. Protesters were able to block roads leading to the airport, but in the very pro-Morales city of El Alto they were prohibited by policemen and military forces from marching to La Paz with the use of tear gas and water cannons.
Within a few days, the escalation of violence had become deadly, with the death toll by 15th November reaching 23, largely due to armed forces attacking pro-Morales protesters. From Mexico, Morales described the events as a “massacre”, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, described the events as an “extremely dangerous development”. Nevertheless, Áñez issued a statement exempting all armed forces from criminal responsibility when acting in a “legitimate defense or state of necessity”, which was condemned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Moving further in what seems to reach coup-territory, the interim interior minister Arturo Murillo threatened both journalists and pro-Morales legislators on charges of subversion and/or sedition. The protests continue, with more aggression coming from the new government side; dispersing protesters with tear gas marching towards funerals for their fellow protesters who were killed in the clashes, opening an investigation into Morales for terrorism and sedition, and arresting the vice-president of Morales’s MAS party.
Although Bolivia is still in a state of purgatory, there is a sliver of hope for the country. On 23rd November, both MAS and anti-Morales legislators approved legislation which convocates a new general election, due to take place in May 2020. Compromises were made amongst both camps; the prohibition of Morales’s participation would be accepted by MAS if Áñez’s government agreed to withdraw police officers and armed forces from all protest areas, lift the exemption of criminal responsibility from armed forces, and other measures which would protect politicians and protesters in the lead up to the new election.
PART THREE: CLEAN BREAK OR COUP?
The only conclusion I can reach is that the current state of Bolivia is both a clean break and a coup, and at the same time, also neither. One could argue that the cloud of Morales’s alleged corruption and obvious desire to stay in office for as long as possible has been stopped, making space for a truer form of democracy in Bolivian politics, exemplified by the fresh election due in 2020. On the other hand, the way in which Morales was ousted from his position, which heavily involved the police, the armed forces and high-ranking military officials is a textbook definition of a coup. Additionally, the repression of protesters with the use of tear gas, water cannons and deadly force can be viewed as an extreme abuse of power by a government lacking a mandate, and in the eyes of a large portion of Bolivians, legitimacy. Hopefully with the upcoming election and a future which is not (at the moment) looking too rocky, Bolivians can return to the energy that is exemplified in their national motto, “La Unión es la fuerza”: Unity is Strength.
Tommy is a third year Spanish & Portuguese student from the UK with a keen interest in language learning and global politics. He enjoys writing about current political affairs and turmoil, especially in Latin America.