generalspeaking

Friday, November 15, 2019

Failure of the Bolivarian Revolution

"[Asylum was granted due to] humanitarian reasons. Morales'] life and integrity are under risk."
Mexican foreign affairs minister Marcelo Ebrard

"If I have the support of those who carried out this movement for freedom and democracy, I will take on the challenge, only to do what's necessary to call transparent elections."
"Evo Morales does not qualify to run for a fourth term. It's because [he did] that we've had all this convulsion, and because of this that so many Bolivians have been demonstrating in the streets."
Senate second vice-president Jeanine Afiez, La Paz, Bolivia

Bolivia's interim president Jeanine Añez talks to the media outside the Presidential Palace in La Paz on Thursday. She has appointed a new military chief and cabinet members to help support her interim leadership. (Marco Bello/Reuters)

The man of the people, Bolivia's Indigenous President Evo Morales who fourteen years ago enthralled the world and elevated the hopes and aspirations of Bolivians to ecstatic proportions of expectation, lived up to his promises of rescuing his country's fortunes and future and giving it back to his people to be proud of their identity and the future awaiting them. The country, once destitute, saw its GDP boosted as a result of good government empowering ingenuity and hard work. Socialists around the world applauded his example. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund found the country's turnabout at Morales' hand admirable.

Poverty in the country was halved. Natural resources were managed well finally and profited the country with an even distribution of benefits nationally as the financial situation became robust, the GDP growing at 5% annually. Education became a priority, and literacy assumed its rightful place among the people. Evo Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo rebuilt the nation. Amazingly, he took his pledge seriously and for years governed as he had promised.

Was it his close association and admiration for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela who boasted of his own 'Bolivarian' Revolution whom he emulated as Chavez became a tyrant, that led Morales astray?

And astray he went, becoming as corrupt as any dictator. In the wake of a rigged election that was illegal to begin with, flouting the nation's constitutional limits of the presidency, limiting it to two terms, Evo Morales had already served out three terms and was intent on a fourth. Protests and unrest resulted and finally Bolivia was convulsed with the spectre of civil war. Like the other leftists who took power in Latin America, weeks of violent protests from disaffected Bolivians against the abuse of power and corruption brought the country to a standstill.

The champion of the poor and downtrodden whose capacity for governing well -- appears to have transitioned in the last few years to an autocrat who felt entitled to permanent rule of a country to which he had brought steady economic growth. His defiance of presidential term limits signed his fate as his government collapsed when the Organization of American States' damning report into serious irregularities during the October vote was released.

Party allies resigned. The military recommended he step away from office. When Morales' deputy and other allies in government and parliament deserted him, it was time for opposition politician, Senate second vice-president Jeanine Afiez to step forward, as constitutionally the next in line to assume the presidency. Mexico acceded to Evo Morales petition for asylum, stating fear for his life motivating him to leave his country. "The world and our Bolivian patriots repudiate the coup", Morales said, accusing his election rival of a conspiracy.