Bolivia is experiencing a new political crisis, evidenced by a meeting held in Cochabamba this Friday (28) by President Luis Arce. Officially, the meeting takes place for authorities from different parts of the country to express their position on the date of the Census.
The beginning of the process became the object of an impasse that triggered a strike, which began six days ago, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The government defends keeping the survey in 2024, but opposition politicians want to advance the process to next year.
The capital of Cruce, where the resistance movement took shape, is dominated precisely by Arce’s opponents. One of its leaders is the governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, vice president of the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee. He anticipated that he would not attend this Friday’s meeting, refusing to negotiate with the government, and said that his province would continue on strike.
“The Cochabamba meeting is not technical, it’s political. So it’s useless if we explain in it our technical reasons for why we want the Census in 2023. The strike continues,” he told the Santa Cruz-based newspaper El Deber. against the government.
Known as Cívicos, the businessmen in the province also convened a parallel meeting in Santa Cruz. “We are not going to negotiate like this. The crisis is here, the president has to come and negotiate here,” said the group’s leader, Rómulo Calvo.
The president’s meeting foresees the participation of more than 300 authorities, each with the right to a minimum intervention of three minutes – with no time to end, the event must extend into the early hours of the morning. Arce said he was open to dialogue with Civics, as long as there is no requirement that the Census date be changed.
The meeting takes place in an environment of lack of transparency. Journalists were not allowed in and the state TV signal was cut off. Cell phones are not allowed and those who speak must leave the room afterwards, reported a politician opposed to the Sheet.
Initially, the Census was scheduled to take place in November of this year, but the Arce management decided to extend it until 2024, citing logistical problems and other priorities. For the opposition, the research cannot wait any longer, because it is based on public policies and the Budget. In this sense, Santa Cruz businessmen claim that the postponement would harm the province, the country’s busiest economy and with a growing population.
The governing group, in turn, claims that the difference of one year in carrying out the Census will not represent a big difference.
The crisis led the government to temporarily suspend exports of grains, soy flour, sugar, oil and meat. The Minister of Productive Development, Néstor Huanca, said that the decision “will extend as long as the strike continues in Santa Cruz, which prevents the regular supply of products to the domestic market”.
Unions linked to the MAS have suggested carrying out a siege of the city of Santa Cruz, to block the delivery of food while the strike lasts. Meanwhile, the Civics managed to rally support in other provinces — there was a march in La Paz and strikes recorded in the departments of Beni and Tarija.
Elected in 2020 after turbulent years of crisis —which followed the resignation of Evo Morales and the coming to power through a legislative maneuver by Jeanine Áñez, currently serving a prison sentence—, Arce is once again facing his most important rival. MAS party (Movement to Socialism), that of Santa Cruz businessmen.
The case draws attention because it was after a strike in Santa Cruz that the process of violent confrontations that led to Evo’s fall began. At the time, Civics supported Áñez’s interim proposal. Symbolically, the group’s leadership decided to start the current strike on the same date as the 2019 movement. MAS sees the actions as coup.
For the ruling party, the strike has served to bring the former and current presidents together again, who were estranged and came back together to support a negotiated exit.
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