Ronn Pineo, Senior Analyst with the Council Of
Hemispheric Affairs and Chair of the Department of History, Townson University.
“I’m convinced that capitalism is the worst
enemy of humanity and the environment, enemy of the entire planet.” ~ Evo
Morales1
Bolivian President Evo Morales has won six
nationwide elections since his presidential victory in 2005, and on October 12th he will
make it seven. His party, the Movimiento a Socialismo (MAS or Movement
Toward Socialism) will also sweep to victory in the 130 seat lower chamber of
congress. There is no serious contender to Morales. The leading opposition
candidate, conservative businessman Samuel Doria Media of the center-right Unidad
Nacional (UN or Democratic Union) is trailing badly, limping in the polls
at around 16 percent. Other candidates are even further behind, including
center-left urban La Paz party, Moviemiento Sin Miedo (MSM or Movement
Without Fear) candidate Juan del Granado, a former La Paz mayor; Partido
Verde (PVB or Green Party) standard-bearer Fernando Vargas, head of an
indigenous opposition movement; and former president (2002-2003) Jorge Quiroga
of the centrist Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC or Christian Democratic
Party).2
To win in the first round of voting Morales
will need at least 50 percent of the vote, or failing that, 40 percent with at
least a 10 percent lead over the nearest competitor. He will do both easily;
polls show Morales now at 56 percent, 39 percentage points ahead of Doria
Media.3 A fifty person team from the Organization of American States
will be on hand to certify the election.
Morales was not supposed to be a candidate this
time. Under the new constitution, no immediate reelection for a third term in
the presidency was to be permitted. However, in 2013 the Supreme Court, a body
highly sympathetic to the MAS, ruled unanimously that Morales could run in the
2014 election, reasoning that his first term came before the new constitution
in 2009 and therefore should not count against the two-term limit. There is
talk now about changing the constitution, after the October balloting, to allow
for unlimited presidential reelection.
The Past as Prelude
Democracy is strong in Bolivia today, but it
certainly has not always been so. With over 190 coups in the nation’s troubled
history–a hemispheric record–Bolivia had long been the butt of endless jokes
about quintessential Latin American instability. Far from democratic, the
government was often brutally repressive, with the generals governing from 1964
until 1982, sometimes directly and sometimes deploying pliant civilian figureheads.
The 1980s brought a time of two significant
transitions for nearly all Latin America. The region moved from military
governments toward democracy, albeit a form of western-style liberal democracy
that could offer free elections, but too often ones with narrowly limited
choices. At the same time Latin America transitioned away from state-led
economic development policies to the embrace the Milton Friedman vision of
unbridled free market policies, or neoliberalism.
The 1980s were a “lost decade” for economic
progress in Latin America and Bolivia. The nation fell into an extreme economic
crisis, with a mounting foreign debt and out of control inflation, reaching
over 11,000 percent in 1985. In response the incoming president Víctor Paz
Estenssoro (president 1952-1956, 1960-1964, and 1985-1989) looked to Harvard
economist Jeffrey Sachs to help design Bolivia’s conversion to free market
policies. “Bolivia is dying on us,” Paz Estenssoro declared as he announced his
program of neoliberal shock therapy, the New Economic Policy (Executive Decree
21060) on August 29, 1985.4 Pressing the economic reset button, Paz Estenssoro raised
taxes, eliminated price controls on basic necessities, froze wages, eliminated
rights and protections for union workers, and generally deregulated the
economy. Advisor Sachs helped make the necessary arrangements with the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund, accepting their recommendations for
implementing a punishing structural adjustment program and maintaining tight
focus on the goal of paying the interest due on the nation’s foreign debt.
These neoliberal economic policies extracted an immediate and severe human
cost, but Paz Estenssoro dealt with the mass protests and strikes by imposing a
three-month state of siege. The economy suffered massive job losses, in the
state oil company, in industry, in mining, while the number of those seeking to
scrape out a living in the informal sector exploded. Paz Estenssoro could point
to only one economic victory: inflation in 1987 fell to 11 percent for the
year.5
Paz Estenssoro needed U.S. financial aid and
U.S. support with the World Bank and IMF, but Washington wanted something in
exchange: compliance with U.S. directives to carry out an assault on coca
production. Responding to U.S. pressure, Paz Estensorro adopted Law 1008 in
1988, moving hard to crack down on local coca growers, cooperating in the
U.S.-led Operation Blast Furnace.6
Presidents Jaime Paz Zamora (1989-1993) and
Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada (1993-1997) deepened Bolivia’s free market
impulse. Sánchez de Lozada, a multi-millionaire mine owner, University of
Chicago trained free market disciple, and intellectual author of the New
Economic Policy decree 21060, pushed through the Capitalization Law of 1994,
bringing a rash of privatizations, peddling off at fire sale prices the
national electrical company, state-run railroad, and the national oil and gas
company.7
Believing that the less government there was
the better all things would be, Sánchez de Lozada moved to downsize government,
decentralizing political power with the enactment of the Law of Popular
Participation in 1994 and the Law of Decentralization in 1995.These measures
promoted the formation of new municipal governing authorities and re-directed a
fifth of national revenues down to the local level. While Sánchez de Lozada’s
actions were an effort to pass off national government responsibilities and
sidestep paying for social needs, this initiative had an unexpected result. The
laws actually served to invigorate local government. Social movements formed to
pressure municipal authorities, and local governments came to be the political
focus point for anti-neoliberal agitation. With the union movement crushed,
social movements and municipal governments stepped in to fill the political
void and pressure for addressing the needs of ordinary people.8
When in 1994 the United States again threatened
to withdraw aid, Sánchez de Lozada hardened the anti-coca push as well. The
first coca growers protest march followed that August. The coca growers union,
which organized the protest, had emerged as a direct result of the U.S.
decision to bring its war on illegal drugs into the coca fields of Bolivia. At
the head of the movement was Evo Morales.
In 1997 Hugo Bánzer followed in the presidency,
serving until 2001. Trained in the infamous School of the Americas, Bánzer had
previously been the nation’s military dictator, 1971 to 1978. As president
Bánzer’s signature initiative, Plan Dignidad, sought to root out
remaining coca production. By 2001 Bolivia’s coca production had fallen to less
than a third of what it had been just six years earlier, a real “Andean success
story,” the U.S. State Department cheerily announced.9
The Tipping Point: Bolivia’s Water and Gas Wars
One critical aspect of neoliberalism in Bolivia
was the privatization of potable water service, a step mandated by the World
Bank as a loan condition in 1997. Acting in November 1999, Bánzer moved to
privatize all potable water in the nation, Law 2029. Bánzer sold off water
rights in the city of Cochabamba to Agua del Tunari, a consortium owned
by Italian interests and the U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation. The company soon
raised potable water rates an average of 35 percent and began charging people
for collecting rainwater or for drawing water from their own wells. As the
chorus of objections began to rise, the World Bank recommended taking a
hard-line stance, advising that “no subsidies should be given to ameliorate the
increase in water tariffs.”10
Vast protests, the “water wars,” erupted from
November 1999 to April 2000, initially centered in Cochabamba but by September
spreading to the capital of La Paz as well. In April, Bánzer ordered a state of
siege, but was met by continuing, massive, and determined opposition on the
streets. In the end Bánzer was forced to back down. He could not impose by
force a measure so universally unpopular and manifestly unfair. Aguas del
Tunari was asked to leave Bolivia. Shortly thereafter the 75-year-old
Bánzer resigned for health reasons–cancer of the liver and lungs–and Vice
President Jorge Quiroga finished what was left of the presidential term.
The 2002 general election brought the return of
Sánchez de Lozada, running against a wide array of candidates, including the
leader of the coca growers union, Evo Morales. Just four days before the
balloting the United States Ambassador Manuel Rocha decided to weigh in. “I
want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if you choose the candidate who
wants Bolivia to go back to being a cocaine exporter, that will put the United
States aid at risk,” he announced. Comparing coca growers to members of the
Taliban, Rocha warned that “a Bolivia led by the people who have benefited from
drug trafficking cannot expect the United States markets to remain open for
traditional textile exports.”
11
The ambassador’s comments did not have the
desired effect, instead launching a groundswell for Morales who enjoyed a
sudden surge in the polls. (Teasingly, Morales publically thanked Rocha and
began to refer to him as his “campaign manager.”) Thanks to Rocha, Morales nearly
rallied to win the 2002 election. Morales took 20.9 percent of the votes cast
to 22.5 percent for Goni. The election was thrown into congress which selected
the leading vote getter, Goni, to serve as Bolivia’s next president.
In 2003 the IMF mandated more austerity
measures, and Goni, ever a neoliberal true believer, readily agreed to their
implementation. Fresh rounds of mass opposition emerged in the presence of
sharp tax increases, privatizations, the sale of Bolivian natural gas to
foreign firms, and the announcement of the construction of a gas pipeline to
Chile. The outpouring of popular resistance came to be known as Bolivia’s “gas
wars,” centered in the highland city of El Alto and spilling out into adjacent
La Paz, September through October of 2003. Determined to show strength,
President Sánchez de Lozada ordered the smashing of the protest movement. The
ensuing police and military repression left some 67 to 97 peaceful protestors
dead, some raked by gunfire from helicopters passing over. A nationwide torrent
of anger and grief followed, finally resulting in Goni’s resignation on October
17, 2003. He fled to Miami as Bolivians celebrated in the streets. He had
lasted in office just 15 months.12
But the water and then the natural gas protest
movements had not merely forced a stop to neoliberal excesses and toppled the
second Sánchez de Lozada government. Coming together, activists had begun to
articulate a reform plan, what came to be called the “October Agenda,” calling
for a rollback of neoliberal water and gas measures, the end to the flat tax,
and, most importantly, the convening of a constitutional convention. As Bolivia
observer and author Kepa Artaraz has correctly noted, what Bolivia was
experiencing was a “double crisis of legitimacy,” a widespread belief that
neoliberalism had failed and that liberal democracy was not responsive to the
popular will. But, as Artaraz adds, “the political questions and the proposed
alternatives did not come from traditional forces and actors from the left, such
as trade unions, as they had been decimated by the neoliberal attack.”13Rather,
it came from Bolivia’s budding social movements growing up at the local level
around the newly formed municipalidades. The dual transition to a
U.S.-style liberal, representative democracy, and the U.S. inspired and
mandated free market policies, had, in the end, come to dual failures.
Vice President Carlos Mesa Gisbert assumed the
presidency from Goni, calling a July 2004 national referendum on the
re-nationalization of Bolivia’s natural gas. The measure passed overwhelmingly.
Still, social conditions remained a matter of widespread concern. Circumstances
were worst in the countryside, where under neoliberalism the proportion of
people living in extreme poverty had risen from under two-thirds in 1997 to
over three-quarters by 2002. In 2005 Bolivia’s per capita GDP was lower than it
had been in 1998.14 As protest mounted against Mesa—his brief administration faced
over 800 mass demonstrations—he gave in to popular pressure. Mesa resigned on
June 6, 2005, leaving Supreme Court Chief Justice Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé as
caretaker president.
Bolivians were evidencing their complete
disaffection with the country’s three dominant political parties: the
chameleon-like Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR or
Revolutionary Nationalist Movement), initially left, then centrist, and finally
neoliberal; the center-left Movimiento Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR or
Revolutionary Left Movement); and the right-wing Acción Democrática Nacionalista
of Hugo Bánzer (ADN or Nationalist Democratic Action). Since the restitution of
democracy in 1982 the three parties had ruled Bolivia by forming governing
pacts. But in the 2005 presidential vote they took a combined total of less
than a third of the vote.15
Bolivian voters plainly had arrived at the view
that the existing political system was without legitimacy. To the wide
majority, Bolivia under the old pacted political system had been a sham
democracy, one dominated by the moneyed interests, snaked through with
corruption, and presenting voters no authentic choices, forcing them to try to
pick between near identical elites who did the bidding of foreign capital.
Voting only granted legitimacy to what was a rigged game. As analyst Raúl
Madrid sums up, “the rise of the MAS [was] driven by … growing disenchantment
with market-oriented policies and the parties that implemented them.”16 Madrid
is right, but there is more to it.
Diminishing U.S. Influence in Bolivia
Bolivia’s economy is less than one-thousandth
the size of that of the United States. Given the considerable asymmetry between
the two nations, the United States has long used its considerable power
advantages to compel Bolivia to bend to its wishes. Beginning in 1985 the U.S.
demanded that Bolivia press forward on two fundamental policies: the adoption
of free market economic policies and an aggressive assault on coca leaf
production. For Bolivia the problem was that these two policies could not be
pursued at the same time.
Neoliberal policies brought fiscal austerity,
the elimination of virtually all programs that aimed at reducing poverty,
coupled with sharp reductions in employment, especially as a result of the end
to government support for the lagging tin mining industry. Due to these measures,
tens of thousands of miners were thrown out of work, dumped into an economy
that was not creating jobs, while the government did nothing to help them or
their families. The one growth area that the Bolivian economy could offer was
in coca production, responding actively to booming U.S. demand for cocaine. As
a direct result, former miners, well-schooled in labor militancy, poured into
the Chapare region and took up coca farming. There they met the determined
military opposition of the United States and Bolivian government. And this was
the paradox at the heart of U.S. policy. Compelling Bolivia to launch
neoliberal policies while aggressively pursuing a war on coca growers led to a
time of extraordinary crisis. The contradictions of the U.S.-imposed policy
agenda were so severe that the U.S.-backed regime suffered a complete collapse.
It is possible that Bolivia could have moved to
neoliberal policies on its own, but the unbending nature of the implementation
of these measures was a result of U.S. pressure, either directly or through the
World Bank and the IMF. The new free market philosophy was not a Bolivian
creation, it was made in America, especially at the University of Chicago, and
the depth of its adoption in Bolivia was in large measure a result of U.S.
demands. On the other hand, it is not possible that Bolivia would ever have
launched the coca eradication programs on its own. Coca is part of daily life
for most Bolivians, from the city people who drink it as tea for breakfast to
the rural indigenous who chew it throughout the day. The spike in new demand
for coca for making cocaine, and then the war on cocaine, were entirely U.S.
creations. Bolivia would never have grown more coca if not for U.S. consumer
demand, and Bolivia would never had undertaken a war on coca production if not
for considerable and sustained U.S. pressure. U.S. pressure demanded that
Bolivia launch an unflinching implementation of neoliberalism and a military
assault on coca both at the same time, and it was doing both of these things at
once that led to the collapse of the old regime in Bolivia. Therefore it is
fair to conclude that it was U.S. power and U.S. overreach that led to
emergence of the Movement Toward Socialism’s Evo Morales in Bolivia, elected to
the presidency in 2005.
Evo Morales to Power
On December 18, 2005 Evo Morales won the
presidency with 53.7 percent of the vote, the highest percentage for a winning
candidate in the nation’s history. “¡Causachun coca! ¡Wañuchun yanquis!
(Long live coca! Death to the Yankees!),” he exalted in his native Aymara
language, giving the protest cry of the cocaleros.17 When he
took office in January 2006 Morales immediately embraced the street protestors’
“October Agenda,” moving to gain a larger share of natural gas export profits and
to rewrite the constitution.
In May 1, 2006 Morales declared the partial
nationalization of Bolivia’s natural gas industry, with Yacimientos
Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) gaining majority control from the
Spanish and Brazilian corporations that held the natural gas fields, pipelines,
and refineries. Morales increased Bolivia’s share of the profits to 82 percent.
Before 2005 Bolivia had taken but 18 percent of the profits, a rate that had
risen to 50 percent under President Mesa.18
Gaining control of this resource was pivotal.
Bolivia enjoys the second largest natural gas reserves in Latin America, after
Venezuela. Since Morales has taken office Bolivian natural gas production has
more than doubled, and proceeds from sales have increased from 5.6 percent of
GDP in 2004 to 25.7 percent by 2008. Today natural gas makes up nearly half of
Bolivia’s exports by value, with over half flowing to neighboring Brazil. Gas
sales are also the key component of government revenues: whereas in 2002
natural gas income made up just 7 percent of government earnings, they now
constitute over half of the national government’s earnings.19
In gaining control of Bolivia’s key export
Morales had achieved a minor miracle, standing up to foreign firms and opening
a significant source of financial resources for his government and nation.
Still, one complaint from the impacted companies did seem fair. Under
neoliberalism Bolivia had opened its natural gas fields to foreign firms,
offering generous terms if they would bear the costs of searching for,
locating, and ramping up production. After they did this, Bolivia changed the
terms of the deal, demanding more money. It was bait and switch, and the
foreign firms have a right to be angry. But it is also a done deal. By the end
of 2013 the state-owned portion of the economy had reached 35 percent, up from
the low of 17 percent under the prior neoliberal governments.20Telecommunications,
under the Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Entel) which used to
be Italian owned, is now also run by the state, as too is electricity
generation. In 2012 Morales moved to nationalize tin and zinc production. There
will be more moves in this direction.
Bolivia’s economy today has been reoriented,
its leading trade partners shifting. South Korea, which purchases much of
Bolivia’s booming soy production, and Argentina, a key buyer of natural gas,
are now the leading markets. The United States has fallen to fourth place as a
destination for Bolivian exports.21
The Drafting of a New Constitution and the
Media Luna Conflict
In the summer of 2006 voters selected members
for a Constitutional Assembly, and on August 6 delegates convened in the city
of Sucre. In December 2007 the Constitutional Assembly approved a draft, but
the charter remained unratified, the nation locked in political turmoil between
Morales and the supporting social movements that sought fundamental reform, and
those who wanted to turn back to the past.22
The élite, especially those from Santa Cruz and
the surrounding lowland media luna, or half-moon district, were outraged
at what they regarded as Aymara Indian Morales’ usurpation of their birthright,
their self-arrogated entitlement to rule over the lives of the indigenous
majority. In May 2008 the media luna departments of Santa Cruz, Beni,
Tarija, and Pando moved toward session, holding an unauthorized autonomy vote.
Both the Organization of American States and the European Union refused to send
election monitors, citing the illegality of the referendum. MAS voters
boycotted the unsanctioned election and so, predictably, those who voted in
this extra-legal ballot favored severing ties with the rest of the nation.23
Bending to the demands of the anti-MAS
movement, on August 10, 2008 Bolivia held a recall election on the Morales
presidency. Morales won a resounding victory, taking two-thirds of the vote.
The separatists, incredulous over their stunning and lopsided defeat, organized
into the Consejo Nacional de Defensa de la Democracía (CONALDE or
National Council for the Defense of Democracy), and recruited paid thugs to
attack government buildings and prey upon pro-Morales activists. The separatist
movement seemed to be gaining in support when, on September 11, 2008, at least
thirteen pro-MAS protestors were murdered in the far eastern Pando department.
Ordered by the opposition governor Leonel Fernández, this ugly episode served
to deeply discredit the separatists. The movement proceeded into sharp decline.
The day of the attack Bolivia expelled U.S.
Ambassador Philip Goldberg, accusing him of assisting in organizing the violent
opposition to Morales. The U.S. ambassador had met openly with the separatist
movement. Said Morales, “we do not want people here who conspire against
democracy.”24 In retaliation, U.S. President George W. Bush expelled the Bolivian
ambassador Gustavo Guzmán and placed Bolivia on a list of nations not
cooperating with the war on illegal drugs. The United States also put trade
restrictions in place, canceling Bolivian participation in the Andean Trade
Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) program. Morales responded by
kicking out the remaining U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents later that year,
and subsequently expelled USAID workers.25 Normal diplomatic
relations, broken in 2008, have still not been restored between the two
nations.
In October 2008 two-thirds of the
constitutional assembly agreed upon an additional series of revisions to the
constitution, what some Bolivians regard as the “third draft,” a watered-down
compromise version of the stronger document initially proposed by indigenous
and left-wing groups. In a referendum in January 2009 Bolivian voters approved
the new constitution, with an amazing 90 percent turnout and more than 60
percent backing the new national charter. At the celebration parties in the
street, Morales joined the revelers, and he wept.
The constitution formalized a broad agenda of
progressive social and economic reforms, with several new poverty reduction
programs, especially conditional cash transfer initiatives; the extension of
educational services; infrastructure development; assurances of indigenous
rights; and a series of re-nationalizations of utilities and public services.
The constitution enshrined the indigenous community (or ayllu) values of
ama sua, ama llulla, ama qhella (don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t be
lazy). The constitution denounced neoliberalism, called for an active role for
the state in guiding the economy, and explicitly forbade the privatization of
water.26 The document reflected much of the October 2003 Agenda. It was what
people had voted for. Democracy was working.
Morales called for general elections under the
new constitution, and in December 2009 won reelection with 64 percent of the
vote. Conservative opposition candidate Manfred Reyes Villa, hampered by a fraud
indictment, and running mate Leopoldo Fernández, campaigning from his jail cell
where he waited to face murder charges, took just 38 percent of the vote. The media
luna secessionist movement was effectively over. The MAS was emerging as
the ruling party in a single party state.
Explaining Morales’ Success
Bolivia’s recent economic growth under Morales
is, as Tulane’s Martín Mendoza-Botelho has observed, “one of most prosperous
periods in the nation’s history.”27 Bolivia’s per capita GDP has doubled since he came to office,
rising from $1,182 USD in 2006 to $2,238 USD in 2012. Under Morales GDP growth
has averaged 5 percent a year, and the 2014 estimate is projected at 5.5 to 5.7
percent. Bolivia’s GDP growth rate is second in Latin America only to Panama
(estimated 6.7 percent for the year).28 Much of this solid
economic performance can be attributed to strong natural gas prices.
Morales should probably not try to take credit
for Bolivia’s winnings in the “commodity lottery,” the inevitable boom-bust
cycle in raw material prices. Still, he can take credit for the building up of
Bolivia’s financial reserves. In fact, Bolivia presently boasts the highest
proportional rate of financial reserves of any nation in the world, with
Bolivia’s rainy day fund totaling some $14 billion USD, or nearly two-thirds of
total annual GDP. Even the IMF is impressed by this accomplishment, lavishing
praise on Morales’ fiscal prudence. It is not clear that Morales really
welcomes the IMF’s avuncular head patting given that he has long refused any
new IMF accords. Indeed the IMF stamp of approval has triggered some second
thoughts among Bolivian government economists, pondering whether maybe they
have been overly cautious.29
Vastly more important than economic growth is
poverty reduction, for it is absolutely possible to have the former but not the
latter. In the years from 1990 to 2002 about two-thirds of the population of
Bolivia lived in poverty, according to United Nations estimates. In 2005 still
over half of the population lived in poverty. Today it is less than a third.
Income inequality has also come down under Morales and the MAS. In 2002 the
richest 20 percent took 58 percent of the income while the poorest 20 percent
received 2.2 percent. In 2011 the share of the poorest fifth had doubled to 4.4
percent while the portion going to the richest fifth had dropped to 43 percent.
Put another way, the ratio of the share of income of the top 10 percent to the
poorest 10 percent had dropped from 128 to 1 in 2005 to 60 to 1 in 2012.
Inflation has also been tamed, falling from 11.8 percent in 2008 to 4.7 percent
in 2012, one of the lowest rates in Latin America.30
Social Programs
What most distinguished the Morales
administration is its commitment to provide government programs to assist those
in the nation’s 11.5 million population most in need. The Bono Juana Azurduy
de Padilla or Bono Madre Niño Niña Program extends small cash
payments for expectant mothers when they see a doctor, with $7.25 USD paid to
mothers for each of up to four doctor visits; $17 USD if they have the birth in
a medical facility; and $18 USD to return for follow-ups for both mother and
child after delivery. This program spent $15.6 million USD in 2012, helping
133,00 mothers and half a million children.31
The Bono Juancito Pinto Program (named
after a twelve year old drummer boy from the nineteenth century War of the
Pacific) actually started under President Bánzer back in 2000 but now has been
greatly expanded by Morales. This program involves cash payments to mothers who
keep their children in school (public schools only, not private) up through the
eighth grade. Families receive $14 USD twice a year, once when school starts and
again at the end of the school year. Bono Juancito Pinto cost $55.8
million USD in 2012, and helps nearly 2 million people.32
The Bonos Renta Dignidad Program
provides retirement benefits to Bolivians over 60 years old. This program is a
significant expansion of the previous 1997 Bonosol initiative begun
under Sánchez de Lozada. Dignidad is the most expensive of the three
social support initiatives, costing a third of a billion dollars annually. The
program helps nearly a million elderly Bolivians, providing $344 to $432 USD a
year in retirement support. Together, these three initiatives reach about a
third of all Bolivians, roughly 3.3 million people, and help three of every
four families in the nation.33 The benefits have become socially institutionalized as a common
expectation. Even the opposition candidates in the forthcoming election are
pledging to continue these popular social programs.
There are other initiatives. Some 900,000
impoverished Bolivians have access to price-controlled electricity. Morales
also launched a feeding program, desnutrición cero, providing free
school lunches. At the same time Morales has quadrupled the number of land
titles transferred to small holders, positively impacting nearly one million
Bolivians. The literacy campaign Morales launched has likewise been a great
success, and in 2010 Unesco declared that Bolivia had eradicated illiteracy.
Meanwhile, highway building has doubled under Morales and a rush of government
spending has helped stimulate a construction boom. Bolivia’s economy is at
nearly full employment.34
The Economic Plan
Morales’ economic development strategy,
announced in June 2006, is called the Bolivia digna, soberana, productiva y
democrática para vivir bien, or the Bolivian dignity, sovereignty,
productivity, and democracy plan to “live well” or “live correctly.” The phrase
“vivir bien” is hard to translate into English. Derived from the Quechua
concept of “sumak kawsay,” and the Aymara “suma qamaña,” the idea
is to live in harmony with nature, placing spiritual well-being over
acquisition of material goods, and emphasizing “collaboration over competition,
sharing over accumulation, solidarity over disagreement, cohesion over
discord,” “ñandereko (harmonious life), teko kavi (good life), …
and qhapaj ñan (noble life).”35These notions, solemnly
enshrined in the new constitution, are ignored in practice.
Instead, Morales has followed an extractive,
raw material dependent, economic policy. This pattern of “narrow-based economic
development … that depends on primary natural resource exports,” researcher
George Gray Molina explains, leaves Bolivia “highly vulnerable to changes in
world commodity prices.“36 It is this decision to aggressively exploit Bolivia’s natural
resources, above all natural gas, that has done the most to drive some
erstwhile Morales supporters into open opposition, especially indigenous and
environmental groups. Morales has decided to take advantage of high natural gas
prices to fund poverty reduction, and hope the impact on sacred Pachamama,
mother earth, is not too severe.
The Run Up to the October Election
Morales has taken a number of steps to buttress
his popular support in the upcoming balloting. One key move is to ramp up his
small-scale infrastructure program, “Bolivia cambia, Evo cumple,”
(“Bolivia is changing, Evo delivers”). Since coming to office he has spent
roughly half a billion dollars on this local infrastructure initiative, much of
it funded by Venezuela. Needless to say, the schools, clinics, potable water
projects and the like are quite popular, and the president tries never to miss
a ribbon cutting, especially with the election approaching.37
In November 2013 Morales declared a special
double holiday bonus instead of the usual one month additional pay benefit at
Christmas time, the aguinaldo. Then on August 27 this year the
administration announced a 10 percent pay bump for workers in nine key
state-run enterprises, with the increase back-dated to the first of the year.
Workers in the oil industry, electrical workers, TV employees, and mining
companies, among others, all got the raise. The Morales administration also
added on an extra month’s bonus to seniors, recipients of the Renta Dignidad,
with monthly payments rising to $36 USD to those with no pension and $29 USD
for those who receive some additional form of pension. Meanwhile, the
government’s price controls on gasoline, electricity, potable water, flour,
sugar, rice, bread, milk, and chicken remain in place. The government also
ended all fees for obtaining copies of official documents, including birth
certificates, high school diplomas, and the like.38
The Opposition
As in much of Latin America, one continuing
problem in Bolivia has been that, as researcher Benjamin Kohl notes, “the
right-wing-controlled media feed[s] … the … fears [of voters] through
deliberate misinformation.“39 Only one of the top twelve communications companies in Bolivia
supports Morales.40 All the others are in the right-wing opposition camp. Yet
despite the fact that Bolivians have, on average, far less education than do
U.S. voters, they have proven themselves to be less easy to manipulate. This
stems in large measure from the historic desperateness of their socio-economic
circumstances. They cannot afford to be deceived. Another potential threat, a
military coup, seems at this time to be minimal. As Kohl notes, “military
support for Morales can be explained by significant salary increases and grants
of military hardware.”41 For Morales the most important opposition groups are no longer
on his right flank.
Instead, the most serious opposition Morales
faces is from groups and causes on the left, often coming from indigenous
people. In Bolivia today some 41 percent of Bolivians self-identify as
indigenous; some 2.5 million Bolivians speak Quecha and another 2.1 million
speak Aymara. The flashpoint issue in this regard involves a 182 mile road
project to cut a road through the 3,860-square mile Isiboro-Sécure National
Park and Indigenous Territory, or TIPNIS.
The TIPNIS area had been designated a national
park in 1965, and then an indigenous reserve in 1990, homeland to the
Moxeño-Trinitario, Yuracaré, and the Chimáne indigenous peoples. Together these
groupings comprise about 10 percent of the population in the region, a total of
about 8,000 to 12,500 people.42
The proposed highway would open up important
new commercial links for area farmers and ranchers. There is really no other
practical route for this road, designed to connect the Cochabamaba region to
Trinidad, Beni in the far northeast of the nation. The road will cut travel
time from two to three days to just four hours. One leading concern of the
TIPNIS indigenous people is that building the road through would open up the
area to yet more colono squatters from the sierra. Over 20,000 colonos
live in the reserve already.43
Morales signed a construction contract with a
Brazilian firm in 2008, but the 2009 constitution called for a process of prior
consultation with impacted indigenous groups. Despite this new mandate, Morales
did not reach out to the indigenous communities until they began to protest in
March of 2011. In August 2011 Morales announced that he was standing firm,
declaring that the road was going forward, “like it or not.”44
Accepting the challenge, over a thousand
protestors staged a 360-mile march to the capital. When police sought to break
up their approach to La Paz, seventy protesters were injured. Who is to blame
remains an open question. President Morales accepted no direct responsibility
for the violence, but he did ask for forgiveness. Then, on October 24, 2011,
Morales canceled the road project (Law 180) and ruled the park “untouchable”
for further development.45
Morales interpreted the law to mean the halting
of virtually any sort of economic activity in TIPNIS, even that favored by the
indigenous living in the region. This was enough to forge a coalition of
developers, colonos, and some indigenous groups in the region to push to
allow the road after all. These groups staged their own march to La Paz,
demanding that the road construction go forward.
In February 2012 Morales implemented Law 222,
calling for a vote, or consulta, on the road. The plebiscite showed that
eight of ten voters backed the road construction, evidently holding to the view
that the highway would provide greater access to employment opportunities,
health care, and education. Morales revoked the earlier Law 180, but the road
project is on hold until after the election.46
Other opposition movements have pushed their
agendas. In August 2010 the central highland city of Potosí went through
nineteen days of marches, punctuated with rioting, with protesters charging
that the MAS was not delivering on promised government infrastructure
development in the city and region.47 Demonstrators also said
that they wanted an international airport for the city. The movement died down,
however, without winning a clear commitment from the government to provide more
money.
In December 2010 widespread protests erupted in
response to a proposed end to government gasoline subsidies; the measure would
have triggered a 73 percent price hike at the pump. Morales backed down on this
initiative in the wake of the gasolinazo protests. In January 2012 other
demonstrations emerged after Morales signed Presidential Decree 1126
establishing workplace rules for health care workers. Hospital workers went out
on strike, halting delivery of medical services throughout much of Bolivia. After
52 days on strike, Morales reached a compromise accord with the health care
workers, repealing Decree 1126 and restoring lost wages from the walkout. This
year there have been strikes by transport workers, students, farmers, and
junior ranking members of the military.48 It is a restive democracy
that Bolivia now has.
Conclusions
Democracy in Bolivia will not fit into
U.S.-centric models of political parties, elections, and liberal representative
government. As Kohl and Bresnahan have noted, there is a strong “difference
between Western-liberal-individualist and communitarian indigenous (Andean)
democracies.49 Kohl and Bresnahan write that:
Whereas Western[ers] … have been socialized in
a one-person, one-vote ideal of democracy, in many Andean communities
democratic deliberations take place at the level of the community itself.
Communal decision making of this type is commonly seen, for example, in
decisions on land use. The ‘community’—which is defined in different ways
according to the setting—decides on how to rotate land, guarantee access to
pastures, assign land in colonization zones, etc., through a consensual
process. Thus it is not surprising for a similar community consensus to be
reflected in voting behavior, especially among indigenous groups that see that
the MAS will represent their interests.50
The MAS is, as researcher Santiago Anria
correctly notes, “a hybrid organization … participating in representative
institutions without abandoning nonelectoral street politics.”51
Bolivians like it this way. Latinobarómetro polling shows that popular
satisfaction with democracy in Bolivia has risen from under a quarter of those
surveyed in 2005 to more than half in 2009. President Morales has not given up
his involvement in Bolivia’s social movements, and even now remains head of the
coca growers union. He is often seen crossing over and joining the people
protesting in the streets.52
Democratic governance in Bolivia in more
activist, inclusionary, direct, and participatory than that in the United
States and the West. Politics in Bolivia are not so much about elections these
days. At polling time the left sets aside its differences and votes for Morales
and the MAS. But as we are seeing, it is between the elections that normal
politics begin. The left fractures, and communities and various associations
begin to clamor for attention to their needs.
In Bolivia, as in Ecuador and Venezuela as
well, the right is in retreat. Indeed, the right is becoming, or has become,
all but irrelevant as a political force. In Bolivia the violent overreach of
the right in 2008 severely reduced its national political influence. The
parties of the right have been reduced to rump voting clubs, the remnants of
prior political configurations. Instead, democracy in Bolivia is the contestations,
the testing of relative strength, of President Morales and the MAS, and social
groups expressing their politics directly, on the streets, in protests,
marches, in highway blockages. Between elections politics begin in earnest, as
the cycle of left-wing pressure begins anew. This is what democracy looks like
in Bolivia.
In 2009, at her confirmation hearings before
the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said that Bolivia under Morales was pursing “policies which do not
serve the interests of the … [Bolivian] people or the region.”53 U.S.
political observers like former Secretary Clinton don’t know what to make of
Bolivia and Morales, don’t have language to talk about it, and may not like it,
but Bolivians do not care anymore. But for those in the United States and the
West who are disillusioned with politics, the new Bolivian democracy should
provide considerable inspiration, demonstrating vividly the parameters of the
possible.54
Republished from COHA
References
Notes
1. Morales, quoted in,
William Powers, Whispering in the Giant’s Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from
Bolivia’s War on Globalization (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006), 133.
2. Robert Kozak, “Bolivia
President Evo Morales Leading in Election Poll: Socialist Leader Boosted by
Strong Economic Growth, but Nationalization Moves Remain a Concern,” Wall
Street Journal August 5, 2014, online.wsj.com; “Opposition Electoral
Alliance Unlikely,” Latin American Weekly Report 12 June 2014, 5-6; and
Jeffery R. Webber, “Managing Bolivian Capitalism,” www.jacobinmag.com, 2014.
3. “Morales Leaves Nothing
to Chance in Bolivia,” Latin News Daily Report 28 August 2014.
4. Paz Estenssoro, quoted
in Martín Sivak, Evo Morales: The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous
President of Bolivia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 41; and see
Eduardo Silva, Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), 107, 110.
5. Silva, Challenging
Neoliberalism,109; Kepa Artaraz, Bolivia: Refounding the Nation
(London: Pluto Press, 2012), 22, 23, 29; Herbert S. Klein, “The Historical
Background to the Rise of the MAS, 1952-2005,” chapter in, Adrian J. Pearce, Evo
Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo in Bolivia: The First Term in Context,
2006-2010 (London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, nd.), 50; Roger
Burbach, Michael Fox, and Federico Fuentes, “Bolivia’s Communitarian
Socialism,” chapter in, Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions: The Future of
Twenty-First Century Socialism (London: Zed Books, 2013), 81; Jeffery R.
Webber, “Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia. Part I: Domestic Class Structure,
Latin-American Trends, and Capitalist Imperialism,” Historical Materialism
16 (2008), 37; Raúl Madrid, “Bolivia: Origins and Policies of the Movimiento al
Socialismo,” chapter in, Steven Levitsky and Kenneth M. Roberts, The
Resurgence of the Latin America Left (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2011), 243.
6. Martín Sivak, “The Bolivianisation
of Washington-La Paz Relations: Evo Morales’ Foreign Policy Agenda in
Historical Context,” chapter in Pearce, Evo Morales,155; Silva, Challenging
Neoliberalism, 114.
7. Silva, Challenging
Neoliberalism, 115; Artaraz, Bolivia, 245.
8. Klein, “Historical
Background,” in Pearce, Evo Morales, 57; and Artaraz, Bolivia,
47-48.
9. The U.S. Department of
State, quoted in, Powers, Whispering in the Giant’s Ear, 207; and see
Silva, Challenging Neoliberalism, 116.
10. The World Bank, quoted
in, Degol Hailu, Rafael Guerreiro Osorio, and Raquel Tsukada, “Privatization
and Renationalization: What Went Wrong in Bolivia’s Water Sector?” World
Development 40:12 (2012), 2565; and Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing,
“’Less Than Fully Satisfactory Development Outcomes’: International Financial
Institutions and Social Unrest in Bolivia,” Latin American Perspectives
36:3 (May 2009), 69.
11. United States
Ambassador Rocha, quoted in Sivak, Morales, 87; and Sivak,
“Bolivianisation of Washington-La Paz Relations,” in Pearce, Evo Morales,144,
159.
12. Powers, Whispering
in the Giant’s Ear, 240; Silva, Challenging Neoliberalism,134; Kohl
and Farthing, “’Less Than Fully Satisfactory,’” 70; Benjamin Kohl and Rosalind
Bresnahan, “Introduction: Bolivia Under Morales, Consolidating Power,
Initiating Decolonization,” Latin American Perspectives 37:3 (May 2010),
5-17; and Benjamin Kohl and Rosalind Bresnahan, “Introduction: Bolivia Under
Morales, National Agenda, Regional Challenges, and the Struggle for Hegemony,” Latin
American Perspectives 37:4 (July 2010), 5-20.
13. Artaraz, Bolivia,
8.
14. Madrid, “Bolivia,” in
Levitsky and Roberts, Resurgence, 243.
15. Germán Darío Valencia
Agudelo, “Bolivia, 2003-2008: un período de profundas transformaciones
políticas y económicas,” Perfil de coyuntura económica (Antioquia,
Colombia) 12 (December 2008), 180; and George Gray Molina, “The Challenges of
Progressive Change under Evo Morales,” chapter in, Kurt Wyland, Raúl Madrid,
and Wendy Hunter, editors, Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes
and Shortcomings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 58.
16.Madrid, “Bolivia,” in
Levitsky and Roberts, Resurgence, 239; Valencia Agudelo, “Bolivia,”184;
and Artaraz, Bolivia, 42.
17. Morales quoted in,
Sivak, Morales, 42; and Sivak, “Bolivianisation of Washington-La Paz
Relations,” in Pearce, Morales, 161.
18. Gray Molina,
“Challenges,” in Wyland, Madrid, and Hunter, Leftist Governments, 65.
19. “Bolivia Earns $16
Billion Since Nationalizing Energy,” green left Weekly May 20, 2013;
Benjamin Kohl, “Bolivia Under Morales: A Work in Progress,” Latin American
Perspectives 37:3 (May 2010), 116; Mark Weisbrot, Rebecca Ray, and Jake
Johnston, “Bolivia: The Economy During the Morales Administration,” Center for
Economic Policy Research, December 2009, 12; Emily Achtenberg, “Contested
Development: The Geopolitics of Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict,” Nacla: Report on
the Americas 46:2 (2013),9; “Bolivia’s Rentier Republic: Evo Morales is
Popular but not Invulnerable,” The Economist May 3, 2014, www.economist.com; and Benjamin Kohl and
Linda Farthing, “Material Constraints to Popular Imaginaries: The Extractive
Economy and Resource Nationalism in Bolivia, Political Geography 31
(2012), 230.
20. “Participación del
Estado en la economía permitió cambiar la imagen financiera del país,” Agencia
Boliviana de Información 26 December 2013.
21. Weisbrot, Ray, and
Johnston, “Bolivia,” 25; and Manuel Mejido Costoya, “Politics of Trade in
Post-Neoliberal Latin America: The Case of Bolivia,” Bulletin of Latin
American Research 30:1 (2011), 87.
22. Madrid, “Bolivia,” in
Levitsky and Roberts, Resurgence, 253.
23. Kohl, “Bolivia Under
Morales,” 110.
24. Morales, quoted in,
Madrid, “Bolivia,” in Levitsky and Roberts, Resurgence, 247.
25. Mejido Costoya,
“Politics,” 86.
26. John Crabtree and Ann
Chaplin, Bolivia: Processes of Change (London: Zed Books, 2013), 24;
Artaraz, Bolivia, 60, 73-75.
27. Martín
Mendoza-Botelho, “Bolivia 2012: Entre Buenos y Malas Noticias,” Revista de
ciencia política (Santiago, Chile) 33:1 (2013), 36.
28. Hedelberto López
Blanch, “La bonanza económica y social de Bolivia,” Rebelión 7 December
2013; Katu Arkonada, “Bolivia: A Balance Sheet for the ‘Process of Change,’” green
left Weekly February 4, 2013; Kozak, “Bolivia,” Wall Street Journal
August 5, 2014; “Morales Leaves Nothing to Chance,” Latin News Daily Report
28 August 2014; “Labour Unions,” Latin American Weekly Report 5 December
2013, 7.
29. Mendoza-Botelho,
“Bolivia,” 36; “Bolivian Political and Social Landscape: Primer for Pending
Presidential Elections,” Andean Information Network, August 1, 2014,
ain-bolivia.org; Fernando Molina, “Why is Evo Morales Still Popular: The
Strengths of the MAS in the Construction of a New Order,” translation and
introduction by Richard Fidler, Links: International Journal of Socialist
Renewal, July 14, 2013, originally published in the May-June issue of Nueva
Sociedad.
30. Valencia Agudelo,
“Bolivia,” 181; “Bolivia’s Rentier Republic,” The Economist May 3, 2014,
www.economist.com; United Nations. ECLAC. Social
Panorama of Latin America, 2013, 16; Frederico Fuentes, “Bolivia:
Nationalisation Puts Wealth in Hands of the People,” green left Weekly
May 28, 2013; and Mendoza-Botelho, “Bolivia,” 36.
31. Mendoza-Betelho,
“Bolivia,” 39; and Weisbrot, Ray, and Johnston, “Bolivia,” 15.
32. Mendoza-Betelho,
“Bolivia,” 39; and Weisbrot, Ray, and Johnston, “Bolivia,” 15.
33. Mendoza-Betelho,
“Bolivia,” 38-39; and Weisbrot, Ray, and Johnston, “Bolivia,” 15.
34. Molina, “Why is Evo
Morales Still Popular,” Links July 14, 2013.
35. Artaraz, Bolivia,
109, 209.
36. Gray Molina
“Challenges,” in Wyland, Madrid, and Hunter, Leftist Governments, 70.
37. Molina, “Why is Evo
Morales Still Popular,” Links July 14, 2013.
38. “Morales Leaves
Nothing to Chance,” Latin News Daily Report 28 August 2014; and Molina,
“Why is Evo Morales Still Popular,” Links, July 14, 2013.
39. Kohl, “Bolivia,” 114.
40. Valencia Agudelo,
“Bolivia,”194.
41. Kohl, “Bolivia,” 111.
42. Achtenberg, “Contested
Development,” 6, 8; and Kohl and Farthing, “Material Constraints,” 230.
43. Achtenberg, “Contested
Development,” 6, 9; and Crabtree and Chaplin, Bolivia, 16, 17, 30-31.
44. Morales, quoted in
Achtenberg, “Contested Development,” 6.
45. Achtenberg, “Contested
Development,” 7; and Kohl and Farthing, “Material Constraints,” 230.
46. Achtenberg, “Contested
Development,” 7-8, 10; Mendoza-Betelho, “Bolivia,” 41; and Arkonada, “Bolivia,”
green left Weekly February 4, 2013.
47. Kohl and Farthing,
“Material Constraints,” 233.
48. Kohl and Farthing,
“Material Constraints,” 233; Mendoza-Betelho, “Bolivia,” 42-43; and “Bolivia’s
Rentier Republic,” The Economist May 3, 2014, www.economist.com.
49. Kohl and Bresnahan,
“Initiating Decolonization,” 12.,
50. Kohl and Bresnahan,
“Initiating Decolonization,” 12.
51. Santiago Anria,
“Bolivia’s MAS: Between Party and Movement,” chapter in, Maxwell A. Cameron
& Eric Hershberg, editors, Latin America’s Left Turns: Politics,
Policies & Trajectories of Change (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2010), 103.
52. Madrid, “Bolivia,” in
Levitsky and Roberts, Resurgence, 254; and Artaraz, Bolivia, 5.
53. U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, quoted in Artaraz, Bolivia, 152.
54. Artaraz, Bolivia,
6.
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