Angus McNelly is an Honorary Research Fellow in Latin American Politics/International Development at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on the experiences of the urban working-classes under the progressive government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, where Angus has spent a significant amount of time conducting research. He is currently part of the QMUL Latin America network, Latin American Geographies-UK and co-organises the Urban and Regional Political Economy working group in the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy.
Abstract: In October 2019, Presidential elections in Bolivia sparked a political crisis. Public trust in liberal democratic institutions collapsed amidst accusations of electoral fraud and incumbent Evo Morales, who initially appeared to have won the elections in the first round, left his presidential post at the suggestion of the military. Bolivian politics polarised around narratives of electoral fraud and coup d’état. In order to make sense of the chaos of this moment, I suggest returning to the framing of ‘crisis as method’ suggested by Bolivian critical theorist René Zavaleta. In suggesting crisis not only as a historical feature of capitalism but also as an epistemological lens through which to discern complex and incongruent social formations such as Bolivia, Zavaleta gives us the tools to make sense of the 2019 crisis. By looking at medium-term processes of subsumption, class formation and nation building, I identify the socio-historic blocs present in 2019 and their lineage, as well as the origins of the two competing narratives of crisis.
Angus McNelly is an Honorary Research Fellow in Latin American Politics/International Development at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on the experiences of the urban working-classes under the progressive government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, where Angus has spent a significant amount of time conducting research. He is currently part of the QMUL Latin America network, Latin American Geographies-UK and co-organises the Urban and Regional Political Economy working group in the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy.
Reflecting on the crisis that enveloped Bolivia in the late-1970s, critical Marxist René Zavaleta Mercado mused that ‘crisis is the classic form of revelation or recognition of all of social reality’.[1] A crisis is a moment that represents an accumulation of what had already come to pass, a moment when incongruent social formations such as Bolivia can be read through the shared time of politics. By reading politics beyond conjunctural phenomena such as coup d’états and beyond the formal political institutions so detached from postcolonial social reality, Zavaleta reconceptualises crisis as an epistemological tool rather than a normative construct, a way to understand, rather than lament, moments of explosive social change. He also saw the creative potential of crises: crises do not only have a national scope but are themselves nationalising events—the diverse temporalities of indigenous, industrial and feudal segments of Bolivian society are altered with their interruption—and offer the material for intersubjectivity: that is to say, shared or common experiences of crisis provide the building blocks for the collective national subject.
This article was originally published in English and Portuguese in dystopiamag.com
Angus McNelly is an Honorary Research Fellow in Latin American Politics/International Development at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on the experiences of the urban working-classes under the progressive government of Evo Morales in Bolivia, where Angus has spent a significant amount of time conducting research. He is currently part of the QMUL Latin America network, Latin American Geographies-UK and co-organises the Urban and Regional Political Economy working group in the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy.
Luis Arce, former finance minister in the government of Evo Morales, celebrated with his campaign team in La Paz in the early hours of October 19 as an exit poll forecast his victory in the country’s presidential elections. Although the official results will not be announced before October 25, all signs point to Arce’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) winning the presidential elections in the first round.
Arce, one of the key architects of economic policy during the Morales presidency, succeeded the former socialist leader – who remains in exile in Argentina – as the leader of the MAS. Although Arce does not come from any of the social movements at the base of the party, he is seen as a leader capable of bringing the party, and country more generally, together.
Despite some heated discussions around polling stations, election day in Bolivia proceeded without a hitch, with many in the country breathing a collective sigh of relief. Nevertheless, Bolivian democracy still faces a number of challenges.
Almost exactly a year has passed since the 2019 vote, which was marred by accusations that the incumbent Morales had committed electoral fraud. After 14 years in power, he was finally forced from office by a coup d’état in early November 2019, with state-perpetrated violence after the putsch leaving scores dead.
There is still much we do not know about those dark days, while many of the issues raised by the 2019 political crisis remain unresolved. The strength of liberal democracy remains weak and the country’s political arena split between those that believe Morales and the MAS were ousted by a coup and those that believe the 2019 elections were fraudulent.
COVID-19 has poured fuel on the fire, as the interim government of Jeanine Añez consistently used the pandemic as a means to consolidate her own political project and delay elections.
Liberal democracy in Bolivia
Bolivia’s liberal democratic institutions do not match up to the complex political reality at the best of times, but changes in the past decade to the body responsible for overseeing elections further eroded public trust in democracy. Morales’s political opponents believed the executive branch of government had undue influence over Bolivia’s new Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). These suspicions were, in their minds, confirmed in 2017 when the TSE accepted Morales’s candidacy for the 2019 elections despite limits on constitutional terms which should have precluded him.
Morales was allowed to run for a fourth term on the grounds of his human rights to democracy, but the price was high. His political opponents mounted a sustained attack on the TSE and painted the 2019 elections as fraudulent in the months leading up the ballot. This was so effective that by September 2019, 68% of Bolivians polled believed there would be fraud in the upcoming elections.
For its part, the TSE did its best to lose what credibility it had left. In October 2019, on the night of the elections, the quick count system known as TREP was stopped unexpectedly. The TSE gave no fewer than four conflicting explanations, angering protesters already suspecting fraud and leading to mass violence in cities across the country.
The Organisation of American States then waded into the fray, publicly voicing its concern about electoral fraud in a report that has since received substantial criticism. The vice president of the TSE, Antonio Costas, then resigned, leaving its reputation in tatters.
Anger after the coup: supporters of Evo Morales protesting in November 2019. Martin Alipaz/EPA
The TSE has fared little better in 2020 under its new president, Salvador Romero. Persistent suspicions of fraud led Romero to cancel the new quick count system, the DIREPRE, a day before the October 18 elections. Until the official count is in, nothing can be taken for granted.
Competing narratives of crisis
The streets are still one of the principal sites of Bolivian politics. Violence marked the run up to the 2020 elections, leading international observers to call for calm.
Following the events of October 2019, the country polarised around two competing narratives: coup d’état or electoral fraud. These narratives were staked out in the streets.
On the one hand, fraud was initially denounced in massive cabildos (public assemblies) in the weeks preceding the 2019 vote and later through the burning of electoral counting houses. More recently, right-wing motorcycle gangs took to the streets in the cities of Cochabamba and Sucre to defend against the return of the MAS.
On the other hand, protests against the coup in El Alto, a majority indigenous city, and Sacaba, the stronghold of the coca growers’ union and the MAS, were met with brutal state violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Añez government of wielding the justice system “as a weapon” against these protesters.
Thankfully, the elections have proceeded peacefully so far. But Bolivia is like a powder keg and the stakes remain high.
As the pandemic rages and Latin America remains in the grip of economic decline, Arce’s new administration will face an uphill struggle . The October 18 vote is not the last word and the powerful interests behind the toppling of Morales remain in the shadows. Bolivian society continues to be divided and its liberal democracy fragile.
This article was originally published in The Conversation, at https://theconversation.com/bolivia-elections-socialist-luis-arce-celebrates-projected-victory-amid-democratic-fragility-148355
Dr Angus McNelly is a lecturer in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests are critical political economy, state formation, urban space and cities, social movements, left-wing governments and Latin American political thought. He is currently part of the QMUL Latin America network, Latin American Geographies-UK and co-organises the Urban and Regional Political Economy working group in the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy.
Neostructuralism and Its Class Character in the Political Economy of Bolivia Under Evo Morales, published in New Political Economy
As the progressive cycle in Latin America wanes, scholars are attempting to unpick the contradictions that underpinned left-wing regimes. This article seeks to trace the political economy of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) from its neostructural and neoextractivist roots in the 2006 National Development Plan (NDP) through the economic strategy actually implemented by the MAS during its time in government. By examining macroeconomic indicators, the structure of the economy, industrialisation efforts and infrastructural projects this article advances a two-pronged argument. On the one hand, economic policy, as well as industrialisation and infrastructure projects, have focused on maximising economic surplus in the extractive sectors over cultivating the sectors that employ the majority of Bolivians. It has then redistributed part of the rents captured by the state into these labour-intensive sectors. This has consolidated Bolivia’s insertion into the global market as a primary commodity producer. On the other hand, the neostructuralist tenets of the NDP have meant that the class character of these policies has been ignored by the government. As the commodities bonanza came to a close in 2013 the government increasingly sided with capital over labour in social struggles over economic development.
Angus
joined the School of Politics and IR as a lecturer in January 2019, having
previously taught at King’s College London as well as the QMUL School of
Management and Business. He was previously a PhD student at SPIR, completing
his doctoral project in March 2019.
Ray Kiely (r.kiely@qmul.ac.uk) is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, UK. His books include The Neoliberal Paradox (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) and The Conservative Challenge to Globalization (Agenda Publishing, 2020).
Angus spoke to The Know Show about the politics of social movements, indigeneity, violence and coca production in Bolivia, the central contradictions of the progressive government of Evo Morales (2006–2019) and the crisis that enveloped the country in November 2019. The podcast offers an introduction into some of the intricacies of this fascinating South American country.
Ray talked about his 2018 book The Neoliberal Paradox, the meaning of the term neoliberalism, and the different ways in which neoliberalism is – and is not – hegemonic. In doing so he suggested that some shifts in the politics of the left reflect rather than challenge neoliberal hegemony.
