Dear friends of VisualPolitik, I think most of you will agree: achieving a strong democracy
isn’t easy.
In our world, there are many democracies, but unfortunately, few quality ones.
Obviously when I speak of quality I mean a democratic system that respects individual
freedom, legal security, political plurality... things like that.
Well, when it comes down to it, there's one basic principle that's essential for any quality
democracy.
And isn’t usually liked by most politicians at all.
I’m talking about alternation; something that’s essential in order to stop any single
person or group of people from essentially taking over government institutions.
It’s precisely due to this concern that many countries have a limitation of mandates.
“Nothing is as dangerous as allowing the same citizen to stay in power for a long time.
The people get used to obeying him and him to leading them, from here, usurpation and
tyranny emerge.”
Simón Bolívar)
Folks, trying to prevent political alternation at any cost isn’t new, or rare, throughout
the world.
And in recent years, in one way or another, Latin America has been plagued with politicians
who’ve managed to retain power at all costs.
Politicians like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Juan Orlando Hernández in Honduras and Nicolás
Maduro in Venezuela.
Now, the latest person to join this list seems to be the Bolivian President, Evo Morales.
And the question many of you are currently asking is, is Bolivian democracy in danger?
What’s happening?
Why is Evo Morales’s candidacy so controversial?
Listen up.
(PROMISES AND AN ADDICTION TO POWER)
On January 22nd 2006, with more than 50% of the vote, Evo Morales became the first indigenous
president in the 193 years since Bolivia’s independence.
His arrival to power meant the end of political exclusion for most of Bolivian society.
In fact, from a historical perspective, I think Evo’s rise to power was inevitable.
But with his leftist speech against Yankee imperialism and in favor of the political
participation of indigenous peoples and the nationalization of natural resources, Evo
Morales set out to lead a transformation in the country, a transformation that had wide
popular support.
To achieve his objectives, the Bolivian government opted for something that has become very fashionable
in Latin America in recent years: Changing the Constitution!
Something that, by the way, also gained a lot of popular support, as election after
election, Evo Morales swept the polls.
But... let's go back to the Constitution, to Evo Morales’ own Constitution.
This is what his article 168 said.
“The State’s President or Vice President mandate lasts for 5 years and they can be
re-elected only once on a continuous basis.”
Article 168 of the Bolivian Constitution)
It's clear, right?
On a continuous basis, a person can only exercise the office of president for two terms.
And each term lasts 5 years.
Thus, as Evo ran for re-election in 2009, his time in government should’ve ended in
2014, right?
Basic mathematics.
But, but... wait... something doesn’t fit.
It’s the year 2018, Evo Morales is still in power and is going to run for re-election
in the 2019 elections.
So, what the hell happened?
Listen up.
(THE INDEFINITE REELECTION)
Folks, this is the story of how a man fell in love with Power.
Let's see, Evo’s Constitution established alternation as a necessary principle for democracy
to work.
But... as soon as the new Constitution was approved, problems began.
Evo said ok, the previous mandate didn’t count because it happened under a different
Constitution... so just as the Bolivian state had been re-founded they needed to reset the
score to zero.
Yeah, it’s a bit absurd.
Alternation isn’t a punishment, but a way of preventing a person from being in power
for too long.
And if you believe in it and introduce it into the Constitution that you yourself have
promoted... well you’ll need to respect it, right?
Well…
No.
In fact, Evo Morales managed to get a positive ruling from the Constitutional Court on a
very controversial case.
According to the court, Evo had been the President of Bolivia, but now he wanted to be the president
of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, which isn’t the same, so he could govern for two
consecutive terms.
See the difference?
Overnight Bolivia, the Bolivia that had always existed, had disappeared.
This explains why Evo ran in the 2009 elections and for re-election in 2014.
But no, of course, he wouldn’t be able to run again.
And actually, Evo himself has said this plenty of times.
He said that in 2019 he’d leave the world of politics to open his own restaurant.
But... just a second… because yes, the restaurant sounds great, but staying in power?
Folks, that sounded a lot better to Evo.
So in 2015, just one year after his re-election, deputies related to the President, presented
a proposal to reform the Constitution.
The newly approved Constitution!
Can you guess what for?
So that both the president and vice-president could be reelected two times, that is, so
that Evo can run again in 2019.
However, this time the shot backfired.
The reform did go ahead in Parliament... but it also had to be approved by referendum...
and there, surprisingly, Evo lost.
Do you agree with the reform of article 168 of the Political Constitution of the State
so that the President and Vice President of the State can be reelected twice in a continuous
way?)
The question of the 2016 constitutional referendum)
The question was clear and the answers even more so: Yes or No.
Yes or no to reelection.
And the Bolivians said No,
But what do you think Evo Morales did?
Did he accept the result of the referendum and the Constitution that he himself had embraced
and promoted?
Well... obviously not.
The indigenous leader, the politician who was going to return the sovereignty to the
people, suddenly came to say: alright, let’s see… the people have been manipulated...
so they don’t really need to be taken into account.
However, in spite of everything, he once again promised to respect the results.
Now, this time, was he serious or not?
Well…
No, he wasn’t.
See, taking advantage of his control over the institutions – which is precisely what
alternation tries to avoid – Evo managed to do something unheard of:
The “Plurinational Constitutional Court”, the body tasked with interpreting fundamental
rule, in its 84/2017 ruling, declared parts of the Constitution itself as invalid.
To justify such a measure, they used International Law, and the Constitutional Court devoted
itself to assessing and interpreting the American Convention on Human Rights, the Inter-American
Court Jurisprudence... everything but the National Constitution itself.
In the end, the result of this entire experiment was that the articles that bothered Evo Morales,
from his own Constitution, were de facto repealed and it was ruled, listen to this, that indefinite
re-elections were a human right.
Because limiting mandates and demanding alternation is an attempt to undermine human rights.
No, in the end, Evo will even get Álvaro Uribe to support his regime.
In short, let’s get serious... because it’s no joke that a politician can do and undo
whatever he pleases with his country’s institutions.
That is dangerous, very dangerous.
The fact is that in Bolivia, Article 168 hasn’t been repealed or modified.
What happened is that now the Bolivian Constitution has parts that are upheld and others that
aren’t.
All of this has unleashed protests against Evo Morales’s anti-democratic drift, both
inside and outside of the country.
Of course, in the face of such a spectacle, several members of the Electoral Tribunal
have resigned, and have been replaced by people close to Evo Morales’s own party.
Thus, finally on December 4th, 2018, this body approved Evo Morales’s candidacy to
the presidency and Álvaro Garcia Linera to the Vice Presidency.
“Nothing is as dangerous as allowing the same citizen to stay in power for a long time.
The people get used to obeying him and him to leading them, from here, usurpation and
tyranny emerge.”
Simón Bolívar)
But... just a second.
I know what some of you may be thinking...
But Simon, there will still be elections... if the Bolivians don’t want him then they
shouldn’t vote for him, right?
Well, folks, there are two problems with this:
First, a democracy can never, ever consist of tyranny of the majority over the minority.
Institutions need to be respected and their mechanisms must exist to prevent a politician
from clinging to power through the use of techniques such as clientelistic voting, dependence
on the government, control of the media or simple coercion.
The second problem has a lot to do with the obsession with power that Evo Morales has
shown.
In other words: how far are Evo Morales and his party, the Movement to Socialism, willing
to go to stay in power?
Evo lost the Referendum and is still running.
He’s moved heaven and earth to be a candidate again.
So now the question is, will he be willing to lose the elections or will he opt instead
for the strategy of winning at any cost?
I’m referring to the strategy that has kept people like Nicolás Maduro, Daniel Ortega
and Juan Orlando Hernández in power.
Come on, the usual move.
This is the question that many are asking themselves in Bolivia.
And watch out, because what Evo Morales has achieved, besides being the Bolivian politician
who’s been in power the longest, is getting this country’s institutions to act at his
will.
Bolivians declare Evo Morales as “the new dictator”.
More than 150 civil organizations agreed to declare Evo Morales as a dictator and determined
an activities agenda in “defense of democracy”.
PanamPost)
Anyways, folks, here at VisualPolitik we’ll be very, very attentive to whatever may come.
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