In Bolivia, politics is not presented in the classic way as a confrontation between the ruling party and the opposition, but as a dispute between factions within the government itself. It could not be otherwise in a country where the MAS (Movimiento Al Socialismo) accounts for more than 50% of the votes in the 2005 presidential elections, and is also the party where various social organizations come together with great capacity for mobilization and collective action.
Unlike countries like Chile, Ecuador and Peru, in Bolivia the Legislative Assembly lacks real political power: it is not the space through which decisions are made, nor can it exert pressure on the Executive, forcing it to retreat or shape its policies. In Chile, left-wing president-elect Gabriel Boric will be forced to establish agreements for the National Congress, not only with the coalition that supported his candidacy, but also with his conservative opponents.
In Ecuador, President Guillermo Lasso, far from having a majority in the National Assembly, is faced with a sector similar to former President Rafael Correa, his main adversary, who is blocking his economic reform initiatives. And in Peru, President Pedro Castillo not only cannot build stable coalitions within his own government, but the Congress of the Republic could remove him from office at any time. In Bolivia, such extremes are simply unthinkable.
Luis Arce and his office
In mid-January 2022, President Luis Arce was besieged by demands for cabinet changes. The Pact of Unidad, the umbrella organization of MAS friendly organizations, had condemned the departure of seven ministers, including the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, who the powerful Unified Union Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia, the CSUTCB, marked as a traitor.
Although government spokespersons described this as part of internal democracy, the truth is that within the MAS an attempt was being made to reconfigure the balance of power between at least two factions of the Movement. Evo Morales was most interested in a change and issued the order for a remodeling of the cabinet. Morales claimed that President Arce did not have ministers to defend him and that all of them were attached to their positions without taking into account that they were “fuses”, that is, that they could be burned to save the president.
Arce, contrary to his previous logic of taking a step back to govern, in this case opted for immobility and managed to convince social organizations that the decision on an eventual change of cabinet, which should take place on January 22, would be postponed until February 11. Everything seemed to suggest that Arce was just delaying the problem.
However, on January 23, government minister Eduardo del Castillo announced the capture of Maximiliano Dávila on the border with Argentina. The former director general of the Special Forces Against Drug Trafficking has been charged with money laundering, illicit profits and links to drug trafficking, based on an investigation by the US drug enforcement agency DEA.
Although Dávila had taken office towards the end of Morales’ term, all media attention was focused on the former president and his administration. The media published a photograph of Morales with the accused, and when he was being taken to the San Pedro prison, the accused claimed that Minister Castillo was violating the process by wanting to “incriminate President (Evo) Morales”.
In response to these events, several MAS leaders tried to stem the political deterioration. Clemente Ramos, deputy for the department of Santa Cruz, accused the right of “coup plotters and drug traffickers” for having allegedly set up the case.
The Federation of Peasant Workers of Cochabamba, along with the six federations of coca growers in the Tropics, spoke out in defense of Morales and declared themselves on alert in the face of what they described as an attempt to destabilize the government. Finally, MAS as a bloc rejected any possibility that former police colonel Dávila could be extradited to the United States. All these efforts were in vain.
Although the opposition party tried to capitalize on the scandal, the real political effect was to weaken the figure of Morales, the unions of coca growers and strengthen Minister Eduardo del Castillo and therefore the entire Arce cabinet.
On February 11, the CSUTCB representative, after meeting with the president, told the media that a change of ministers would no longer be requested and that there would be a periodic evaluation “to improve the quality and governability of our brother president and vice president “.
Arce managed to keep his cabinet and, in this way, obtain a clear victory over the pro-Evista current, while the former president denounced the existence of a “right wing” within the MAS that seeks to discredit him.
Democracy in faction politics
The proximity between drug traffickers and the police, and the promiscuity between judicial officials and murderous criminals, would probably have provoked a political avalanche capable of putting any government in serious crisis. However, this was not the case. The scandals only served to rebalance power between the MAS factions, but they did not generate political changes that, for example, would commit the government to a real transformation in the administration of justice and the police.
This is the pernicious effect of the prevailing party system in Bolivia, where the disproportionate political power of the ruling party means that opposition party actors have no minimal capacity to block any MAS initiative.
In this way, the political game is played within the limits of the MAS and between the social organizations that, in one way or another, are part of the government administration, without transcending an institutional space where a large part of civil society perceives that its interests are being discussed and represented.
With the arrival of Arce to power, politics became more dynamic, but this change did not represent an expansion of democracy in the inclusive sense. If before, politics was centered on Morales, today it is concentrated on the MAS and its factions that fight for government power.
If politics is reduced to the limits imposed by the MAS, democracy is seriously undermined and discontent is generated among the population that no longer feels represented or that feels used by those in power. Democracy must be able to include actors and currents that are not linked or do not coincide with the majority party. If that doesn’t happen, the risks of a crisis of political representation are high.
