Amidst the one-year celebrations of Luis Arce’s inauguration as Bolivia’s president, after a tumultuous process that has plunged the country into chaos since Evo Morales’ removal in 2019, government opponents also took action and paralyzed roads across the country this Monday. fair (8).
Transport and trade unions went on strike on Monday in protest against the Law against the Legitimization of Illicit Profits, the name of the controversial project that, according to opponents, will allow the government to investigate the assets of citizens without a court order, among other aspects.
“They want to investigate us as criminals to find out where we get our money and our goods,” union leader Francisco Figueroa told Reuters. “We’re afraid they’ll take everything from us.”
Unionists and opponents marched in the country’s main cities, with the right to blockade of roads in Santa Cruz, the main stronghold of the opposition against the government party, the MAS (Movement to Socialism), and the backyard of businessman Luis Fernando Camacho, leader of the protests that led to Evo’s resignation two years ago.
According to the Bolivian newspaper El Deber, around 200 MAS supporters took to the streets of Santa Cruz to remove the blockades and clear the roads. As a result, there were clashes between supporters and opponents of the government, with several wounded and dozens of people arrested.
Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo played down the strike speaking to state TV. “In almost eight departments of the national territory there is complete normality, free movement. In the department of Santa Cruz there are sporadic blocking points, which were formed more by stones than by people,” he said.
In the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, congressmen squabbled and spread posters and banners against and in favor of the government during the president’s speech. Government deputy Héctor Arce denounced to the Public Ministry a colleague who, according to him, tried to strangle him.
The processes of internal division have increased in Bolivia since Evo’s resignation in 2019, under pressure when he decided to run for a fourth presidential term, which went against the Constitution.
Amid the turbulent departure of the country’s president, Jeanine Áñez, second vice president of the Senate, assumed the opposite as interim president, with a controversial interpretation of the Constitution, in a process that opponents accused of a coup.
During his tenure, mass protests were violently repressed across the country. She left power in November last year, following the election of Luis Arce, an ally of Evo, and was arrested in March this year on charges of conspiracy, sedition and terrorism.
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