THE OAS OMITS TO ACTIVATE THE INTERAMERICAN DEMOCRATIC CHARTER TO BOLIVIA.

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
July 31,2019

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Attempting to present as something normal the “vote-catching dictatorship” established in Bolivia and the holding of general elections there this coming 20^th of October -boasting the ineligible candidate Evo Morales as the main candidate- has turned out to be, up to now, more important than to apply the principles and guidelines of the Organization of American States (OAS).  A long litany of crimes has been committed and continues to be committed, all while the InterAmerican System avoids to address the scandalous official backing given by Secretary Luis Almagro to Morales so that he be a candidate for the fourth consecutive time and omit to apply the Interamerican Democratic Charter to Bolivia.

The same democratic leaders, governments, countries and the very same system that has considered Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator, as an “usurper” and has not recognized him as President for having held fraudulent elections in May of 2018 to illegally and illegitimately re-elect himself, is ignoring -since long ago- Bolivia’s case that is a replica and the same; an act of usurpation of the will of the people expressed through the 21F Referendum Election, an act of counterfeiting judicial rulings and administrative decisions with judges and government officials controlled by the regime, and act replete of constitutional and legal violations.  Venezuela’s farce of 2018 is now being replicated in Bolivia.

What is criminal, dictatorial, and an usurpation in Venezuela, that without a doubt it is, has been backed by Secretary Almagro in Bolivia as a “human right” with the argument that “it would be discriminatory” to; enforce the law, respect the result of a binding referendum election and all the essential components of democracy.   Facts and similar situations, inter-related, with the same cause, objective, and crimes are given differentiated rating and treatment.   It seems that the Inter American Democratic Charter is intended to be invoked when the disaster has already been consummated and the dictators are rooted in the government, instead of being the mechanism with which democracy is defended.

With less than 90 days left for the upcoming elections in Bolivia, the OAS is getting ready to deploy “electoral observers” and this way to continue being an accomplice of Evo Morales’ usurpation of power and crimes.  The OAS had already participated with its “observers” in the so-called “primary elections” this past 27^th of January, despite the fact these elections were held solely to legitimize the disqualified candidate Evo Morales.  These farcical elections were the brunt of criticism summarized by the BBC as “the unusual balloting in which all candidates turned out to be winners and none of them competed with one another”.  To date, the report from the OAS’ observers that were present in such primary elections is not known.

How can anyone justify an electoral observation mission to an election in which the regime’s disqualified candidate -running as the favorite candidate- is in power in a country where for many years has political prisoners, over 1,200 political exiles, and whose population is persecuted through the misuse of the judicial branch that has judicialized political repression, commonly applied in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia?

What valid electoral observation can there be in a country such as Bolivia, where there is no rule of law, separation and independence of the branches of government, where human rights are violated through governmental actions?  Electoral observation, complicity, or naivety?

To enable an usurper candidate and then help him -with observers- to legitimize an election that does not meet the minimum of requirements to be a “free, fair election based on universal suffrage concepts, with secret balloting as an expression of the people’s sovereignty” is by far contradictory with the binding contents of the Democratic Charter.

What has happened in Bolivia is a “breakdown of the democratic order and the alteration of the constitutional order that have wrecked democracy” reason why the General Secretary and the OAS should have applied -long ago- Articles 17 through 20 of the Inter American Democratic Charter and steps to protect the people from the crimes perpetrated by those in power that have killed democracy.  We are still on-time, but Almagro has taken the wrong path.

We are left with the hope that democratic governments of OAS’ member states, now threatened by destabilization machinations taken against them by the Castroist Chavist dictatorships, will react and will no longer wait to address Bolivia’s case “in extremis” as has already happened with Venezuela and Nicaragua.

*Attorney & Political Scientist.  Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Published in Spanish by Infobae.com. Sunday July 28th 2019

 

Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.