Three Women, Three Perspectives on the Division in Bolivia’s MAS
Evo Morales, Photo: EFE.
By Javier Larraín – Nov 16, 2024
In “the street,” in friends’ meetings, in the press… Everywhere, the population wonders about the veracity, depth, and state of the division within the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
There are those who wish it were a bad dream and that when they wake up everything would be as before; others are determined to stir the ashes of hatred.
We wanted to know the point of view of three influential women, two of them former MAS government officials. The first is Susana Bejarano, a well-known journalist who is a supporter of the Process of Change. The second is Ariana Campero, former minister of health and former diplomat in the administration of Evo Morales. The third is Verónica Navia, until a few months ago responsible for the Labor, Employment and Social Welfare portfolio. They have the floor.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of the fight in the “masismo” party
We began by asking them for an evaluation of the current state of the fight between the Evo and arcista factions: the good, the bad, and the ugly…
Bejarano: “I do not know how much good can be taken out of such a cruel fight. Perhaps what I would say is that it moved the masista structure and that is something that would happen sooner or later, the natural desire of the militancy to rise politically without the need to be close to Evo or to someone close to him. That was an existing tension even before the 2019 coup.”
Regarding the bad, she identifies that “not having had internal institutional mechanisms to improve the management of this conflict, you find that the strongest and most representative political institution in the political history of the country is about to be banned.”
And the ugly? She points out: “the ugly and tragic thing is the lack of understanding of what this fight, without quarter, means for the popular movement that found in the MAS an instrument of political representation, the possibility of managing sectorial interests that had not been attended to historically and, of course, the transformation of national politics with the indigenous presence in the whole political chain without the need of intermediation. The indigenous people were the protagonists for the first time. All this could be lost.”
Moral decomposition of one of the largest movements in the history of Bolivia
Campero’s diagnosis is conclusive: “we are in a state of moral decomposition of one of the largest movements in the history of Bolivia.”
With this starting point, she does not identify anything “good” in the present moment, expressing her concern for the future: “the unpleasant aspect of this situation is the bad example left to the new generations about the way of doing politics.”
Meanwhile, the former Minister of Labor chooses to dive into history before falling back on the distinctive feature of the struggle that summons us: “first, we must refer to how the MAS arose and its relationship with the political instrument. Between 1995, 1996, and 1997, the First, Second and Third Congress for Land, Territory and Political Instrument were held in Santa Cruz, Potosí, and Santa Cruz, respectively, all convened by the Single Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), as the consolidation of a debate that the sector had been holding since the 1980s. The meeting was attended by all departmental and regional organizations, including the Special Federation of the Tropic of Cochabamba (cocaleros) headed by Evo Morales.
“The conclusions revolved around the creation of the Political Instrument – Assembly for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (IP-ASP) as a first attempt, although without the basic requirement to participate in electoral processes… In view of this, another of the most debated conclusions of the congress meetings was, precisely, participation in elections.”
Navia continues: “since obtaining the legal personality became an impossible task, in spite of the great efforts made for two years to achieve it, the Electoral Court (now Supreme Electoral Tribunal) always found some defect not to grant it.
“For this reason, it was decided to participate in municipal and national elections under the (borrowed) acronym of the United Left (IU). Thus, from 1997 onwards, they were represented in some Municipal Councils, and the best known, Evo Morales and three other comrades, were elected national deputies (not with their own political instrument, but the door was opened to parliamentary debate on an “equal footing”). By 2004 (I am not sure of the year), the possibility of acquiring an acronym that would allow the social organizations to participate with their own political instrument appeared; however, it was not the social organizations that acquired this acronym but Evo Morales, who was a deputy and also a coca growers’ leader. Since then, Evo Morales has been the president of MAS and the only candidate with this acronym. Therefore, the internal dispute between arcistas and evistas is not, from my point of view, for personal factors of who and for how long, but for the democratization or not of the Political Instrument, for recovering or not the origin of this: the social organizations.”
Origin and escalation of the conflict
Wishing to get to the root of the impasse between evismo and arcismo, we asked our interviewees to identify the points of disagreement and how they escalated over time.
Bejarano does not identify a particular incident but points to organic issues in the MAS: “The dispute has its origin in the lack of mechanisms for internal democracy. The differences were noticed at the beginning of Luis Arce’s administration, I would even say since the campaign. After a few months of government, there were—from what today is referred to as the pro-evista wing—requests for changes of ministers precipitating the conflict. Likewise, many cadres that today we would call evistas were inexplicably left out of Arce’s scheme, who focused on promoting very second-line people; and if you look back and evaluate things, it was not a great team for the president either, as there have been many people without leadership who built nothing to help Luis Arce’s management.”
The journalist continued with a key issue, the road to the presidential elections: “the other issue is the candidacy for 2025. Since his return from Argentina, Evo was convinced that he would be the candidate for these elections, without taking into account that things had changed within the political party.
“There were and there are aspirations of power for groups that in other circumstances would not have had access to power; although this situation was not sincere from the beginning, it happened this way from the beginning.”
The former minister of health travels to the past to address our concern: “Lenin talked about the importance of criticism and self-criticism within the party. In this case, the non-existence of a consolidated party and, in addition, the intentional absence of criticism and self-criticism within the MAS-IPSP have deprived its bases of the possibility of exposing their thoughts on the 2016 referendum, the constitutional sentence that enabled Evo as a candidate in 2019, and the coup d’état experienced the same year.”
Campero stressed the lack of spaces in which to channel opinions and learn how to manage them. For her, “we were wrong to ignore the 2016 referendum and insist on the repostulation through a constitutional sentence, which became the perfect pretext to consummate the coup.”
Likewise, she questions the fact that those errors continue: “We continue making the same mistake: insisting on the same candidacy.”
Verónica Navia, in response to this question, notes that “Evo Morales [is] willing to defend, even with the lives of his comrades, the ownership of the MAS-IPSP acronym.”
I will explain, referring to some elements of recent history. After the constitutional referendum of 2016, claimed by the right wing as its 21F, the internal search for a new candidate (not leader, only candidate) began, given the disqualification of Morales for a new term. Obviously, those who tried to profile themselves were branded as “Lenín Moreno” in allusion to the betrayal of Rafael Correa in a succession in the government of Ecuador. Not even García Linera was spared from the new title, in view of the possibility of Evo’s resignation to the presidency to run for a new mandate. From that moment on, Morales’s fixation (promoted by the fearful environment) on the presidency of the state led to his committing one mistake after another that ended in the weakening of the government administration—not of the political instrument, which in 2020 demonstrated its strength in the electoral process—that since 2010 abandoned the transformations proposed in the October Agenda and in the Government Plan itself.
Navia used the word “usurpation” to explain what is happening. For her, “anyone who pretends to ‘usurp’ the position of candidate is considered a traitor. Positions that are analyzed and promoted from the Tropic of Cochabamba by different actors that made of that region the necessary political refuge to launch slogans. This confirms that the MAS does not belong to the social organizations but seems to have private property, with the right of decision over the popular will.”
“The escalation, which is the second part of the question, is due to the proximity of the national elections [and] to the need to pose as an eligible counter to whoever has the greatest power and can be considered in the next list of candidates. For this, they are using threats, transferring people from the Tropic to different blockade points and, unfortunately, violence,” she concludes.
Constitutional Court of Bolivia Rules Evo Morales Cannot Be Presidential Candidate in 2025
Consummation of the division
Few words are so much the order of the day in the MAS as “division.” Some dream of an unforeseen turn that would make unity viable. Others are entrenched in their positions and devote themselves body and soul to “division” instead of to trying to understand those who, until a few years ago, were their comrades.
We asked about the cost that the consummation of the division would mean for the Process of Change. Bejarano did not hesitate: “The electoral cost will be known next year; however, it is the first time that a door has been opened for the right wing to govern the country again in a democratic way”.
Then she explains the responsibilities of the leaders in this fight: “The opposition is dedicated to dusting off neoliberal recipes ‘to save Bolivia’, and this is the responsibility of the political leadership that was unable to offer, even in the midst of dispute, ideas on how to manage the state and the necessary adjustments to the masista economic and political model that today are resented…”
Campero clarifies that “the cost would be the return of the pro-imperialist right wing to power through the ballot box and, with this, the implementation of neoliberal policies, the concentration of wealth in few hands, and the increase of poverty.”
For her part, Navia agrees that “it would be a very high cost. Faced with the disappearance of the left in Bolivia, subsumed by the hope of a Process of Change ‘towards socialism’, there are no other options left.”
Here, Navia cannot but evoke decades of struggles: “Since the congresses I mentioned to you, the conviction was to participate in elections for the seizure of power that could carry forward the Democratic and Cultural Revolution. At the beginning of the administration, it was carried with a lot of impulse to comply with the October Agenda (raised by those mobilized in the so-called Gas War in 2003), which demanded the nationalization of hydrocarbons [and] the Constituent Assembly, among other points that Carlos Mesa had the opportunity to materialize but not the courage or the conviction to listen to the will of the people.
“Once the Agenda had been fulfilled, it remained to rethink a new one that would deepen the Process of Change, but with all the actors of the political party.
“This vacuum is now taking a heavy toll that makes us think that, internally, there are two projects: the first one, the mobilized one, that of Evo, which is a strictly electoralist position and has the elections of 2025 as its horizon; and the second one, that of Lucho Arce’s government, which seeks to project our process for the next 50 years. If you analyze them, they are not mutually exclusive because in order to continue with the deepening of the Process of Change, the triumph in the elections must be guaranteed.”
Delving into this nuance, the ex-authority illustrates that “the dispute of evismo is with arcismo, and the answer is “let the social organizations decide.”
Just around the corner: the right wing
With the end of the year and barely 10 months to go before the presidential elections, and with the MAS in the embarrassing situation described above, we cannot help but share with the interviewees the figures of some pollsters and the thoughts of a few analysts who predict that a victory by the opposition is more than possible. But, what would have to happen to prevent the right wing from returning to power?
Bejarano does not see many alternatives in this respect: “A third way is the only option for MAS. One that dispenses with the opposing fronts. Due to the levels of pettiness shown, this will not happen; but, ideally speaking, it would be a way out.”
She ventures into the weaknesses of the opposition that may play in favor of the ruling party: “The right wing has against it that it does not understand the country, that it is either unaware of or abhors what has been done by the MAS.”
Campero expresses a desire that she sees as possible: “Unity. But to achieve it, we must look at ourselves in the mirror, recognize our mistakes, transform ourselves into better revolutionaries, and provide an opportunity to those who can really win an election.”
In other countries, they are experiencing the continuity and evolution of their processes and revolutions, why couldn’t Bolivia do so?
Navia also appeals to “unity,” but confirms her difficulty in not knowing “how to heal the deep wounds we have made among our comrades.”
Finally, she emphasizes the importance of prioritizing the collective political project at all costs: “we must once again convince the bases, the militancy, that we have the power through the social organizations, that the political instrument has no owner, but that neither can we ignore a leadership that we have built in more than a decade. The issue is who will take that step.”
Javier Larraín, professor of history and geography.
