-Analysis-
The attempted coup in Bolivia was not only a reflection of the present state of tensions in that country, but also echoed a dismal past of recurring coups. Its near immediate failure, though, raises many questions.
The country’s president and target of the coup, Luis Arce, briefly joined his old boss and now bitter rival Evo Morales in condemning the storming late Wednesday of the presidential palace. In a welcome sign of Bolivia’s institutional evolution, even two of the country’s jailed opponents, the conservative former governor of the province of Santa Cruz Fernando Camacho, and Jeanine Añez, who briefly succeeded Morales after the last coup against a Bolivian president, joined their jailers in condemning the coup.
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Yet the man behind the assault, General Juan José Zúñiga, who had been sacked as army chief briefly before the coup, and is now detained, had reportedly intended to release Añez,.
This was good news for a region that is increasingly fragile in institutional terms. It should be said, in Brazil supporters of the last president, Jair Bolsonaro, celebrated the coup before it failed.
A spooked establishment
Arce now has an opportunity to consolidate himself on the back of the vigorous support he received, though it is not clear how he will extract himself from a social and economic crisis that has played into the hands of Morales, his rival to lead the country’s socialist movement.
The failed coup coincided with truck driver protests
The incident might even be laid at his door in part for the political chaos Morales provoked before he was overthrown in 2019, precisely for seeking to hold on to power.
Both Arce and Morales have spooked the country’s political establishment, and perhaps armed forces, fueling fears that the Left was here to stay for good, Cuban-style.
Will the Russians help?
The failed coup coincided with truck driver protests planned before for Wednesday, over fuel shortages and currency instability. The government had announced the Russians would help out with fuel, which was quickly denied by state oil firm YPFB.
It was all a symptom of the disorderly state of government, partly caused by the split in the ruling MAS (the Movement Toward Socialism) party founded years before by Arce and Morales. So why are they rivals now?
This is in part for Morales’ ambition to regain power, yet again, in spite of the courts telling him he could not lawfully seek a fourth presidential term. With little time for such details, Morales has been busy in past years undermining Arce inside MAS and government bodies — and undermining the government in the process.
Army “pronunciamiento”
The political upheaval comes as the economy continues to suffer. In the early 2000s, Bolivia enjoyed vigorous growth thanks to gas exports and high commodity prices, which helped elect Morales a first time in 2005.
Money was plentiful, the state spent on big projects and unemployment fell. Arce was economy minister then. The dream sputtered to an end a little before 2020, fueling opposition to Morales’s would-be fourth term, which he pursued anyway in the elections of October 2019. Not only had he massaged the laws already to allow his indefinite reelection beyond 2019, but he fiddled with the election results to ensure he would win. That provoked protests, followed by an army pronunciamiento and his own flight to Mexico.
Technically, Morales renounced his presidential ambitions in November 2019, responding to a request by a prominent trade unionist, Juan Carlos Huarachi. The leftist media, notably in Mexico, said he had fled a coup and the idea caught on. That allowed Arce to dramatically imprison conservative leaders, notably Morales’s interim successor Áñez, as ‘plotters.’
Arce should take note of this incident, for any echoes it might have with 2019. Refusing to see signals of discontent is an incipient sign of authoritarian rule. And in Bolivia in particular, you can never be sure the season of the coups is over. All of this begs the question: who, now, is the enemy of lawful government?
