Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
March 10, 2020
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Bolivian’s civil resistance forced dictator Evo Morales’ resignation and started the transition towards democracy that has turned out to be a turbulent process that forebodes the dictatorship as the winner in the upcoming elections of 3 May. Almost 14 years of Castro Chavist dictatorship with Cuba and Venezuela’s direct intervention in the establishment of Bolivia as a narco-state, the creation of crises with electoral fraud, and Evo Morales and his regime’s flagrant crime in the elections of 20 October of 2019, ultimately led to Morales’ resignation on 10 November of 2019. A meager four months later, the dictatorship is winning the upcoming elections and if this occurs, the impact for Bolivia and the Americas will be devastating.
The fall of dictator Evo Morales and the establishment of an interim government to start the transition towards democracy surprised everyone because it was the result of an authentic grass-roots civil resistance process which kept whittling down Morales until he was left without a government. Evo Morales desperate and frightened, resigned, ignoring the pressures of his handler who operated as Cuba’s ambassador in La Paz. He left for Mexico from where he personally instructed the commission of terrorist acts that produced the massacres at Senkata and Sacaba, repeating similar massacres that he himself had committed in Senkata in 2003 and in Sacaba in 2001. He now resides in Argentina from where he conspires and abides by the Castro Chavist strategy for Bolivia.
The constitutional succession process endowed Senator Jeanine Añez the role of Interim President in order for her to hold free, fair, clean elections and start a transition process from dictatorship to democracy. Elections could have been convened by an Executive Branch’s decree in the short term, as in January or February of 2020 (as President Rodriguez had done in 2005), but they chose -by way of the National Assembly that had control of over two-thirds of the dictatorship’s votes- for a later date. That was the indicator –amply ratified– that in Bolivia the dictator had fallen but not the dictatorship. The system, assembled in almost 14 years in the mold of Cuba and Venezuela’s system, is still intact.
With terrorist acts directed by Evo Morales from Mexico and with the vigorous criminal mobilization of; his coca leaf harvesters’ unions from Chapare, his social (collective) movements, and the intervention of the FARC’s armed groups and others, the dictatorship opened negotiations with the interim government. The result was a well-simulated split in Evo Morales’ and the narco-traffickers’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) political party in Bolivia, that appeared to be the mainstay of the interim government from the National Assembly.
The strategy the dictatorship is applying is: 1. To denounce Evo Morales’ resignation and the start of the return to democracy as a “coup-d’état” mobilizing the entire Castrochavism apparatus throughout the world; 2. To maintain his dictatorship, retaining power in the Judicial system, the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Justice Tribunal, electoral tribunals, prosecutors, financial and administrative tribunals; 3. To guarantee impunity for Evo Morales and members of his regime and turn-in an accused in order to simulate and claim political persecution; 4. To keep the MAS political party duly legalized and enable as many members of the dictatorship as possible as candidates; 5. To divide the interim government, multiply the number of MAS candidates in order to decrease the number of other candidates in such a way as to allow the dictatorship to win elections and/or control the majority of the National Assembly; 6. To keep the efficiency of his assault forces, coca-leaf harvesters and other movements, as a threat to sustain a “cocaine-free zone in the Chapare”; 7. To obtain safeguards for party members, delay investigations, and continue the uncontrolled handling of its finances and resources.
The dictatorial strategy works. Eight weeks prior to the elections the MAS candidate, a former Evo Morales’ minister, who should be prosecuted and disqualified for his nearly 14 years of corruption, is winning the elections with nearly 34% of the votes. The next dictatorial maneuver is to disqualify Chi Hyun Chung as a candidate and with the addition of those votes exceed 40% with an advantage of 10% over the second runner up candidate. Candidates Carlos Mesa, Jeanine Añez, and Luis Fernando Camacho compete for the remaining 50% of the national votes that they have split anywhere from 14% to 17% and the electoral campaign between them is for a second place and is neither against the dictatorship nor to win the election in the first round.
As a matter of fact, if candidates Añez, Camacho, and Mesa do not join forces, something that looks implausible, Evo Morales’ dictatorship that never left power, will retake the government in Bolivia with devastating effects that guarantee the continuity of the narco-state. Bolivia will go back to Castro Chavism under the leadership of Cuba, along with Venezuela and Nicaragua and will be backed by Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. With Bolivia returned to Castro Chavism through an electoral victory; impunity, narcotics’ trafficking, and political persecution are guaranteed to happen and the Americas will be under a greater threat than the attacks against Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador.
*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com March 8th, 2020
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.