Bolivia in its Labyrinth | NACLA

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Long gone are the days of 2000, when the people of Cochabamba rose up against the privatization of water. So too are the days of 2003, when the people of El Alto and a multiplicity of organizations throughout Bolivia fought for the recovery of natural resources and called into question the neoliberal model in force until then. The abandonment of the once revolutionary “process of change,” articulated in the construction of the Plurinational State and the political horizon established in its 2009 Constitution, is largely the result of the political and moral decomposition of the country’s largest and most influential party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).

Bolivia's political and social landscape is undergoing a convulsive period that dramatically exposes the internal fractures of the MAS, as well as the economic and social tensions that have been accumulating in recent years. On the one hand, the MAS has suffered an irreconcilable split into two blocs: the “Evista” bloc, loyal to former President Evo Morales Ayma, and the “Arcista” bloc, loyal to current President Luis Arce Catacora. On the other hand, the serious economic crisis and gross inefficiencies in its management make everyday life in Bolivian society ever more precarious. As discontent and desperation mount, there are no signs of common and unifying agendas from the grassroots. Rather, the dynamics of struggle over access to power in Bolivia today move through the crisis, without seeking to resolve it. The once transformative promises of the MAS, which has ruled for the greater part of two decades, have been reduced to a maze with no end.

A Crisis Foretold

In 2023, the country’s dollar shortage became the specter of the crisis. The fall in the value of gas exports and a subsequent drop in production, in conjunction with the termination of exports to Argentina in 2024, made it impossible to hide the crisis any longer due to its direct repercussions on the daily lives of Bolivians. Although the economy is more Bolivianized than in the past, thanks to protectionist policies implemented by the MAS in its early years, the inaccessibility of dollars began to hurt small and large traders and businessmen, as well as debtors in dollar currency. Little by little, the rise in prices of basic goods in the family basket became a painful reality.

At the same time, government-led attempts to industrialize and extract lithium have not been consolidated, while signaling the damaging environmental impacts that are sure to come. Given the lack of resources to be extracted to sustain the country’s primary export economy, mining unions have turned to extracting gold from the riverways of the Amazon, using precarious methods that have very few benefits for the state and great social and environmental consequences.

One of the most peculiar events to emerge so far, related to the latent economic crisis, was the alleged coup attempt on July 25 of this year. That morning, a military detachment headed by former General Juan José Zúñiga tried to enter the former Government Palace using war vehicles. At the Palace entrance, the instigators were shouted down by Arce and his companions in what seemed like a theatrical and performative charade. The staging concluded with the rebel general’s imprisonment on national television. The public announcement made by Zúñiga, who had been dismissed from his post for making controversial statements about the possible candidacy of Morales, pointed to the dire situation in the country: “Our children have no future, the people have no future.”

In statements made after his arrest, Zuñiga claimed that Arce had asked him to organize a false coup in order to increase his popularity in the midst of the economic crisis.

Cracks within the MAS party first emerged in the aftermath of the failed 2019 elections, when Morales was overthrown and the de facto government of Jeanine Añez created a fracture in the party that would only grow. Under Arce, elected in 2020 to replace Morales who was in exile, the “renovators” of the MAS sought to dispute spaces of power within the state that remained closed, given the iron control that Morales maintained over the distribution of candidacies and other important positions. The MAS renovators consolidated a bloc that began to undermine the social organizations that make up the party's support base. Born from the state bureaucracy, “Arcismo” became the new power bloc within the party.

At the grassroots level, the division became evident during congresses that were held to select new leadership within the organizations that make up the Pacto de Unidad, or Unity Pact, the campesino-Indigenous alliance created to defend the process of change. The National Confederation of Native Indigenous Peasant Women of Bolivia - Bartolina Sisa, the Trade Union Confederation of Native Intercultural Communities of Bolivia, and the Single Trade Union Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia all held leadership renewal congresses between April and August 2023. All of them ended in violence, chaos, and confusion, motivated by the insurmountable differences between party factions and their representatives.

For his part, Morales sought to consolidate his candidacy by holding a MAS congress in October 2023 in the Chapare province, his regional stronghold. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), however, decided to annul the congress and ordered a new one. These shows of force increased in intensity in September, when Morales organized a multi-day mobilization called the “March to Save Bolivia.” The mobilization did not generate the turnout Morales had hoped for, and he ended the march by announcing a road blockade for September 30. This measure was suspended, however, under the justification of not worsening the already fragile economic situation of the Bolivian people.

Escalations, Lawfare, and Repression

A definitive turning point came on October 2, when an arrest warrant for the former president was issued in the department of Tarija on charges of human trafficking, human smuggling, and statutory rape. This accusation had been made in 2020 by the de facto government of Jeannine Añez, but was abandoned soon after. The reopening of the case set off alarms among the Evista bloc, which interpreted the allegations as political persecution in order to annul their candidate.

And so it was; as María Galindo has affirmed, the charges do not constitute a search for justice, but the instrumentalization of women in the battlefield of power. This breed of lawfare was made evident in the outrageous declaration of Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo, who affirmed in a November 1 press conference: “The Bolivian people, today, have waged a great battle against pedophilia.”

The Evista Unity Pact convened a national road blockade for October 12, concentrated mainly in the department of Cochabamba. The blockade points obstructed transit in the locality of Parotani, to the west, and in several areas of the Chapare, to the east, effectively paralyzing the country in a sustained mobilization that lasted 23 days.

The government initiated a campaign to discredit the protest measures, emphasizing that the protesters primary motive was to defend an “accused rapist.” Repressive measures were reserved until the final days of the blockade, when security forces moved to unblock the roads through the indiscriminate use of force. The decision to resort to state violence was in response to strong demands from other sectors of society affected by the blockade but that do not identify with the government. In the city of Cochabamba, the most impacted by the prolonged blockade, a multiplicity of organizations from florists' unions to dairy workers, trade unionists and merchants, including the Departmental Workers’ Union, took to the streets to show their disagreement and discontent with the protest measures blocking the country's highways.

Reanimating a past thought to have been overcome, the popular protests were joined by a renewed version of the citizen platforms that mobilized against the alleged electoral fraud of 2019. Middle class neighbors, university students, professionals, businessmen, and even the paramilitary organization Cochala Youth Resistance (RJC) gathered in a town meeting convened by the Cochabamba Civic Committee and the Chamber of Commerce, Industries, and Services of Cochabamba (ICAM). This event demonstrated how popular discontent was articulated alongside hate speech against the campesino movement behind the blockades, issued by right-wing forces opposed to both versions of the MAS.

Opacity as a Political Strategy

The notion of the “strategic production of opacity,” theorized by the scholars Raquel Gutiérrez and Dawn Paley, materializes in the Bolivian case in a disconcerting way. This concept refers to the impossibility of making sense of the social reality as a result of social polarization, the superimposition of opposing narratives, and the fragmentation of facts and events. In other words, we face not only the concealment and falsification of reality by political and economic forces in open confrontation, but also the blurring of reference points in the political field that prevents grassroots organizations, activists, and observers from moving through it with clarity. This opacity limits the possibility of action and renders the crisis an unintelligible object.

This strategic production of opacity is evident in the actions of the warring factions. This can be seen in the decision to reopen the case of statutory rape against Morales, and in the response by organizations loyal to him to initiative a blockade “against the crisis.” On the other hand, the growing discontent with the inefficient policies of the current government and the dollar and fuel shortages was diluted and turned into exploitable capital in the dispute for power, including by right-wing political sectors. For this reason, citizen assemblies have had a large popular urban turnout, redirecting accusations surrounding the cause of the crisis to both the Arce government and the Evista blockades.

Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the peasant movement and its efforts to exert pressure, which express a legitimate demand against government neglect, are covered up under a racist stigma that labels them as “obedient sheep” and “servile” to a discredited caudillo. These narratives, produced by urban movements and the government itself, served to justify repressive actions and turn them into part of the “struggle against the crisis” — and in a more grotesque way, as the “fight against pedophilia”. These dynamics reflect the incapacity of MAS leaders to give constructive answers to a crisis that is as much political as economic.

The image of Morales, built over 14 years as a symbol of the Plurinational State, of Indigenous struggles, and of the dignity of the people, is taking a heavy toll. If we look at Bolivian history, it is evident that the peasant movement has generated affective links with strong leaders that knew how to ally themselves with campesino interests. It is this “affective economy,” as the philosopher Laura Quintana would say, that is activated from the depths of history and evokes an iron loyalty towards the leader.

In spite of his attrition, even in spite of the accusations of rape, the affective and symbolic links between Morales and the peasantry, especially in the areas of greatest conflict, is still in force. And this is one of the biggest obstacles; the absence or systematic elimination of alternative leaderships within the party places Morales once again at the center of politics as the only representative candidate of the popular camp. This dependence on a charismatic leadership exposes one of the greatest challenges of the MAS: the lack of internal renewal and the absence of alternatives that would permit the projection of a future beyond caudillismo.

Meanwhile, Luis Arce Catacora and his image as the economist behind the “Bolivian miracle,” which propelled Bolivia’s process of change during the commodities boom, has disappeared. His government, fragile and surrounded by economic problems, seeks to legitimize itself through confrontation, victimization, simulacrum, and alarming political persecution on full display.

The economic and political crisis is a sign of a broader crisis on the left and for Bolivia’s grassroots organizations. Far from motivating cohesive responses, the food shortage, the rising cost of basic goods, the lack of gasoline and diesel, have been fertile ground for the political exploitation of citizens’ desperation, further deepening the country’s social fractures and diluting the possibility of building political horizons. In practice, the crises serve as the spur on which the internal struggles of the MAS and the reordering of the conservative right are settled.

Bolivian society is lost in its labyrinths and colonial contradictions, dragging its history as an unresolved and painful burden, with no way out. Who will be the leftist candidate in the 2025 elections? Will the ground gained by the right-wing thanks to the MAS division be rewarded next year?

And perhaps most importantly: Is there still a national project that can renew the hopes of transformation and social justice in Bolivia?

Gabriel Rodríguez Garcia is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico. He holds an MA Social Sciences from the same institution and a BA in Linguistics from the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia. His current field of research is social conflict, collective actions, and subjectivities.

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Bolivia in its Labyrinth | NACLA

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