The Resignation of Bolivia’s Evo Morales Is Not a Coup

Photo by: Hector Vivas/Getty Images
From: www.newsmax.com

The incumbent, pro-Venezuela and pro-Cuba Evo Morales was a candidate after ignoring a national plebiscite that voted not to allow Morales to run for a third term or be indefinitely re-elected..

Morales resorted to the government-controlled Constitutional Courts to annul the will of the plebiscite and ran for a third term. The argument was that Morales’ first term took place under a different constitution (during Morales’ first term a new constitution was approved by a constituting assembly). Therefore, Morales’ first term didn’t count as such. At the time of his resignation Morales had been in power for 14 years.

As the votes were counted it looked like Morales didn’t have enough votes to prevent a run-off and because of this he proceeded to shut down the counting. The morning after, Morales was declared winner with no need for a run off. That generated mass protests that denounced the elections as fraudulent.

A report issued by the Organization of American States (OAS) declared that the recent Bolivian elections couldn’t be validated because of the irregularities that were found in the process. The OAS urged to change the Electoral Court and called for new elections to take place.

Morales then declared that a new round of elections will take place. The attorney general announced a judicial investigation against members of the high electoral court. The people, having lost all confidence in Mr. Morales, intensified their demand that Morales and his government resign. They were not going to fall again in that trap.

The commander of the Armed Forces William Kaliman requested the resignation of the president in order to reestablish order in the country. This has been grossly misinterpreted by certain people in Bolivia and outside it (like Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Great Britain, Alberto Fernandez in Argentina, former Brazilian president Lula Da Silva, and Minnesota U.S Rep Ilhan Omar in the United States, who called it “a coup d’etat”). Likewise, Kaliman called on the population to abstain from acts of violence.

Since Friday there have been police riots in rebellion against Morales’ fraud. The military refused to repress these riots and Morales found himself cornered and alone. Before Morales resigned his vice president and chief ideologue Alvaro Garcia Linera, his Minister of Mining, the president of the high electoral court and the speaker of the House of Representatives had already resigned. Governors and Mayors from Morales’ party had also resigned.

The Bolivian Workers’ Organization (COB), the largest trade union in the country and an ally of Mr. Morales also requested the resignation of Morales in order to bring about peace and order. COB declared that the organization does not wish to be associated with a national bloodshed.

The Difference Between Bolivia and Venezuela

The differences between Bolivia and Venezuela are important to understand.

In Bolivia there was a well-organized opposition led by Luis Fernando Camacho, a leader of one the richest business associations in the country. However, the discontent went beyond Camacho’s province of Santa Cruz. He mobilized the masses and refused to give up. Until the appearance of Juan Guaido, the opposition had no leader capable of unifying. Likewise, the political opposition, contrary to Venezuela, did not rush to recognize fraudulent results.

In Bolivia, like in Venezuela, Morales tried to co-opt the military and the police to support his regime.

Morales sought to transform the military by creating new training and anti-imperialist indoctrination. At the same time, like in Venezuela, Morales gave benefits to the military in terms of salaries and also roles in the state apparatus. The military indeed was part of the “the re-foundation of the Bolivian state” based on leftist and anti-colonialist ideas.

The new enemies of Bolivia were not the drug traffickers or a concrete external enemy but “social injustice,” “racism,” and “poverty.” Foreign companies and foreign entities are enemies because they “loot our national resources.”

Morales even created with the support of the ALBA, the anti-imperialist school where mandatory courses were given to officers willing to be promoted. This training includes courses aimed at indoctrinating the military against the imperialist enemy, namely the United States. Morales publicly expressed his interest in having Iranians training Bolivians. It is reasonable to assume that Iranians have already been involved in the training or education of the Bolivian military.

However, when popular protests erupted in Venezuela, the military remained on the side of the government while the Bolivian military, learning from the Venezuelan experience, understood that standing with Morales would be highly costly in terms of human lives and social turmoil and that it could prompt a civil war.

The Venezuelan military’s cowardice extended the agony of the Venezuelan people. When some Venezuelan officers decided to rebel, they were already under heavy Cuban surveillance and frightened by the monstrous Maduro regime. Maduro murdered a few military officers and incarcerated others. Maduro resorted to para-military forces that included convicted criminals and murderers, foreign terrorist organizations, Cuban repressors, and others.

The Bolivian military acted smarter and more responsible.

In Bolivia, it definitely wasn’t a coup d’état.

The Morales government was illegitimate in the first place and itself has attempted to become a military-supported regime and not a democratic one. People were imprisoned without charges. Protestors were killed. The Morales government usurped the state apparatus. The military decided to join the people, not Morales. The Bolivian situation is comparable to the desertion of key military figures in the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986 or to the Orange revolution in the Ukraine, in 2004, where a social uprising in light of electoral fraud ousted the government of president Viktor Yanukovych.

New elections without Morales could restore constitutional rule to Bolivia. Bolivians have a lot to look forward to.

About Luis Fleischman

Dr. Luis Fleischman is a Senior Adviser to the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington DC. He is also a professor of Sociology at Palm Beach State College. He is the author of the book, “Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era: The Security Threat to the United States.”