Class Conflict Sharpens in Bolivia

by Gerry Foley / February 2007 issue of Socialist Action Newspaper

The big international press has begun to take note that the class conflict in Bolivia is beginning to go over the head of the country’s demagogic new president, Evo Morales.

Thus, the Washington Post wrote Jan. 22: “The elected assembly [Constituent Assembly] charged with redrawing Bolivia's political blueprint has not debated a single proposal after six months of sessions. When the 255 members meet, they fight over how many votes it will take to pass constitutional changes, if the changes are ever proposed.”

Even this debate is essentially shadow theater. Morales’ supporters are not challenging the rule that constitutional changes will ultimately have to be approved by a two-thirds majority, which gives their right-wing opponents a veto. They are only pressing for the right to get symbolic preliminary approval for the changes they propose.

The Washington Post continued: “But the people of this politically divided country are growing increasingly impatient, and they have started to do what the assembly has not. They are once again debating Bolivia's future, in an even more volatile setting than the contentious assembly hall: the streets.”

The article pointed out that Morales’ promises of nationalization are still maintaining most of his support: “Despite the tension in the streets, the popular nationalization agenda has helped keep Morales' overall popularity rating above 50 percent, according to recent polls.” But his approval rating has been erratic. It fell precipitously when he delayed nationalization of the hydrocarbons, and again when he delayed renationalizing the Huanuni tin mine.

The Washington Post article said that “some loyal Morales supporters say they fear that support could erode if the government does not respond more quickly to public demands.

“Raul Prada, an assembly member from Morales' party, said he fears a repeat of what happened in Ecuador two years ago, when Lucio Gutierrez—a president elected on a populist agenda with strong support from the indigenous population—was ousted after abandoning his base and losing the support of the middle class.

“‘The opposition has grown—not so much for what they have done, but as a result of our mistakes,’ Prada said during an interview in Sucre, where the assembly is based. ‘Before, the opposition on the right was completely pulverized, but now they are holding these large rallies and attracting parts of the middle class. It is tremendously dangerous.’”

The most threatening opposition to Morales’ government centers around the demand for autonomy of the departments (provinces), which would offer an escape route for the right-wing-dominated provinces—where the country’s most lucrative resources are located—from any measures by the national government that the local rulers would consider damaging to their vested interests.

Provincial autonomy is the demand on which the right-wing opposition is mobilizing in the streets. The Washington Post claimed that a million people rallied in December in Santa Cruz, the capital of the right-wing-dominated province of the same name, in support of the demand.

Morales himself helped to confuse the masses about the import of this proposal. One of his first actions after being elected president was to go to Santa Cruz, speak to the local elite, and congratulate them for raising awareness about the need for provincial autonomy.

Actually, a majority of the provincial governors are right-wingers—not only the ones in the traditional right-wing fiefdoms such as Santa Cruz and the other “Half-Moon” provinces of the southeast. They are a spearhead of opposition to Morales’ government.

The governor of Cochabamba province is also a rightist and a proponent of autonomy. His repression of a demonstration in which three people were killed sparked a mass upsurge demanding his removal. But Morales disavowed the movement.

The Bolivian revolutionary website Econoticias reported Jan. 12: “’In the face of this slaughter, we are going to impose community justice. There will be no pardon,’ said one of the leaders of the Central Obrera [Workers Federation], which represents the social sectors that have begun to break free of the control of the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS).

“From La Paz [the capital], the MAS called on the angry population not to move ahead to oust the prefect [governor], Reyes Villa, an ultra-right ex-military officer who up until October 2003 ruled alongside the fled president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada [who was ousted by a mass upsurge, notably outside Morales’ “democratic,” (parliamentary) framework]….

“President Evo Morales himself, has appealed from the presidential palace on people to respect the democratic framework and the prefect who won the elections in Cochabamba: ‘I ask the social movements to act within the democratic framework and not to be vengeful. The poor people of the countryside have never been vengeful.’”

Morales’ attitude in this case is disturbingly reminiscent of that of Salvador Allende, the Popular Front president in Chile in the period leading up to the September 1973 military coup that installed the Pinochet dictatorship. When his supporters in the military began to try to organize against their officers, who they knew were preparing a coup, Allende disavowed them and threw them to the wolves in the name of the obedience that they were legally obligated to give their superiors.

The historic pattern of reformist regimes in Latin America is that they have infuriated the right without making radical enough changes to maintain their active mass support. This conflict has destroyed them all and inflicted terrible defeats on the masses, like that represented by the bloody Pinochet regime.

However, Bolivia has the most experience of revolutionary movements of any country in Latin America. It has a strong Trotskyist tradition and a socialist and workers movement not controlled by Morales. It can still be hoped that the forces to the left of Morales will offer an effective alternative before it is too late. And that alternative will have to be based on mobilizing the masses directly and not within any parliamentary framework.