The Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) of Evo Morales accuses President Arce of “treason”

A not very encouraging scenario for the political awning that has managed the destinies of Bolivia since 2006 and only interrupted by almost a year of the government of Jeanine Áñez. The Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) is leading an internal dispute in what is the preamble to the electoral environment that will be experienced in the country by the year 2025.

In a press conference offered the day before, the Bolivian Presidency Minister, María Nela Prada, vented the displeasure of the Government, headed by Luis Arce, with respect to the statements made known by the vice president of MAS, Gerardo García . He accused Arce of “betraying” the party and its leader, former President Evo Morales.

“We deeply regret and firmly and fully reject these statements (…) we have not betrayed and will not betray the principles of our political movement“, the official pointed out. At another time, the minister stressed that “unfortunately these accusations against our president (Arce) who was here in the hardest moments to precisely raise from the ashes together with the Bolivian people, our political instrument, to restore hope and stability” .

He also referred to the alleged accusations of poisoning that the Executive would be preparing against Evo Morales, made by the party leadership. “It must be pointed out that the only poison is division,” he said, “that the only poison is all these attempts to divide the popular movement”.

According to Prada, the accusations against the president try to create a state of adverse opinion that facilitates the expulsion of Luis Arce and his vice president, David Choquehuanca from the ranks of the Movimiento al Socialismo. Given this, he warned that the main enemy of the MAS is the “fascist right” and not its boss.

At another time he threw a dart against the head of the party. According to María Nela Prada, the MAS has neither “owners nor bosses” and recalled the role of the organization in society: “it is the political arm of social organizations” (…) “it belongs to the Bolivian people beyond documents of expulsion or membership cards”, he sentenced.

In what appears to be a response to the words of the head of the presidential office, former president Evo Morales tweeted two paragraphs that, more than calming the waters, accentuate the schism of the left-wing group. “If any authority believes that he came to office because of his supposed fame or personal merit and not because of the accompaniment, loyalty, and organic commitment of the MAS-IPSP, he is demonstrating that he does not belong to our people’s political instrument,” he emphasized.

In this context, some of the local sections of the MAS supported President Luis Arce, who thanked the support given to him, among others, by the leadership of the MAS of the department of Santa Cruz. In a tweet, Arce emphasized that “it was not only a support for his management,” but also “a support for democracy.”

“Betrayal is what hurts the most”

The last known conflict within the MAS broke out last Tuesday, when at a MAS meeting, his second-in-command accused Arce of wanting to run in the upcoming presidential elections under the auspices of another party.

Gerardo García argued that “betrayal is what hurts the most (…) Instead of us making a government effort, they continue to say that they are from the MAS, but they are acting differently, they have tried and are trying to do their own political structure”. Likewise, he declared that the party leadership regrets having agreed for Arce to replace Evo Morales at the head of the country. According to García, there are several points that have contributed to this conclusion.

The first of these is the permanence of officials who, according to the party, have been criticized from the base and “continue intact” in their posts, for which reason the people are getting tired of these attitudes. The second is the alleged “corruption that affects the current head of state”, an issue that has been growing since the government’s recognition of a certain permeability of drug trafficking in police institutions.

In this sense, Morales denounced that the Executive, proposed by him, attacks him with lies and threatens him. “I am very sorry that now with a government that came to power with the acronym of MAS-IPSP we have summonses, investigations and persecutions”, he expressed on his social networks.

Perhaps the key to the discussion is the election of the MAS standard bearer in 2025. Gerardo García, among his complaints, mentioned that ‘Lucho’, as President Arce is known in his country, told him that he would exercise the mandate of the nation “for only this time”.

The fight went to the extreme of not inviting its militants who serve as officials in the current executive train to the next expanded meeting of the MAS, under the justification that they cannot be “judge and party” in the debates. A decision that exacerbates divisions.

A call for unity

The Spanish newspaper ‘El país’ echoed from the words of one of the most respected personalities within the Movement: former Vice President Álvaro García Linera. He called for a unity agreement on the Bolivian left.

According to Linera, quoted by the Iberian newspaper, being separated will make it difficult to achieve a victory and even more complex to win from now on, mentioning that they will lose power “for a long time.” He even warned about the uncertainty that this fight could bring to society, and that it would undoubtedly be reflected in polls accompanied by pessimism.

The former second in command of Evo Morales recalled that in all these public fights political apathy comes hand in hand, a scenario that could not only damage the image of the leaders, the country and the party, but could also ruin the a “catastrophic defeat” in the 2025 presidential elections.

The dispute between the leaders

If something has always been clear in the bases of the MAS party, it is the indisputable figure of Evo Morales as a unifying entity. The election of Luis Arce Catacora as president not only brought differences in the way in which both ran the country, but also called the attention of the new Cabinet every time Evo tried to participate in State decisions.

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Although it has maintained a similar line in domestic and foreign policy, what put the final stone in the wall between ‘arcismo’ and ‘evismo’ was the promulgation process of the Law on the population census that ended with a strike in the economic engine of the country (Santa Cruz). This did not go down well with the hard wing of the MAS, unaccustomed to losing to their political adversaries. This was described by Morales as a “historical error.”

Internal division is a problem that plagues leftist organizations that once displayed power, not only nationally but also continentally during the so-called “won decade” of the left in Latin America. Mention can be made of the case of Rafael Correa with his former vice president, Lenín Moreno, or the rupture that the Peronist government of Alberto Fernández and his vice president Cristina Kirchner are currently experiencing.

With EFE and local media