Latin Analysis: The Legacy Evo Morales
Evo Morales - JUAN MABROMATA
During this last decade, the world has seen the Latin American governments grow increasingly left-wing oriented. This phenomenon, known as the “Pink Revolution”, officially started when Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez became head of state. Then, slowly but continuously, a “domino” effect has been occurring in other Latino nations, such that governments of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and many others, have followed this trend. Adding to this, experts have been forecasting in recent years that this political wave, characterized by anti-colonialist sentiments and populism, will continue to spread to other countries of the region (as Colombia).
Yet, this pink revolution has not been without its turmoil. A particular case in which the inclination of a government to a more left-wing orientation caused political and social unrest, is that of Bolivia. This is the case as the former president, Evo Morales, the first left-wing leader of indigenous descent, held on to power for almost 14 consecutive years. This caused social and political disturbances that led to a coup d’état in 2019 and forced him to flee the country to seek political asylum.
Since then, even when Jeanine Áñez, former vice-president, became interim president of the country, a fierce race to power amongst the biggest political parties began. Mostly, Bolivians needed to decide whether to vote again for Morales’s party – Socialist Movement (MAS) – as he continues to lead the institution and to manage the current candidate’s campaign – or to favor the opposition – Citizen’s Community (CC) and Creemos.
One of Carlos Mesa’s – CC’s presidential candidate – most prominent slogans during his campaign was “Arce (MAS’s candidate) is Morales”. Indeed, several political experts had declared that, if Arce was to win the elections – and most polls indicated that it was most likely to be the case – it was not likely that Morales would be satisfied with having a secondary role on the new government, as well as it would mean that the former president would return triumphantly to the Latin nation from which he was thrown out from over a year ago.
Despite Luis Arce’s insistence that he “is not Evo”, the political opposition, as well as political analysts, have remarked that if MAS was to win the presidential election, the main decision-maker of the Bolivian government, would be Evo Morales, even when he would not be officially the head of state.
Political strategists had continuously stated that if the opposition wanted to win the elections and overthrow MAS’s dominance in Bolivia’s political sphere, it was necessary for both parties – CC and Creemos – to join and have a single candidate that would represent them. Alas, this was not the case.
Presidential elections were finally held this past 18th of October in Bolivia. As expected, Luis Arce, won the race. The results showed that MAS’s won by an overwhelming 55.1% of the total votes, while CC obtained only 28.83%, and Creemos got 14%.
Given that the count of the votes took a longer time than expected, several civic groups and non-governmental organizations have declared that they will not acknowledge the results of the elections. Thus, many groups are calling for a national strike, as they declare to believe that the results are a consequence of yet another electoral fraud. The Plurinational Electoral Institution (OEP) recognized that the counting of the votes took longer than usual, but they stated that, however, this was a result of counting them several times and making sure that the published results would be unquestionable.
From his political exile in Argentina, Evo Morales was quick to tweet in celebration of MAS’s victory, as well as to declare that his return to the country was, therefore, “only a matter of time”. In addition, Morales did not hesitate to publicly reach out to other left-wing heads of state, in the hopes of consolidating the “union” between Latin American leaders which follow similar political ideologies. Indeed, the morning of the 23rd of October, Morales flew to Caracas on a plane operated by the government of Maduro to meet with the Venezuelan president, as well as he has been reuniting with political leaders in Argentina and twitting to Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, thanking him for immediately granting him political asylum when he left Bolivia.
It is yet unclear if the former president intends to return to Bolivia in the following months, as other politicians from MAS have not made any further comment on this matter. Experts state that, however, it would not be strategically convenient for him to return yet, given that if he does, he would need to face the allegations against him on genocide, terrorism, and corruption on the national supreme courts. Nevertheless, it is expected that, as his political “heir” own the elections, this might mean that all charges against him might be “forgiven” such that he can return peacefully to Bolivia.
Without a doubt, this means that the Pink Revolution is far from being over, as this continuity of socialism in Bolivia might give the movement an increased strength. It is yet to be seen how other governments react to the results of this election and if the rest of the Latin American societies decide that this is a political and economic orientation they might want to keep following in the years to come.
