July 3, 2020
The former president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Evo Morales, reported this morning that on instructions from the US and in view of the imminent victory of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) in the first round, the candidates of the Bolivian right wing, Carlos Mesa and Jeanine Añez, agreed to get “together” in the elections of September 6th.
“Now the elections are guaranteed. This morning in the city of La Paz, Carlos Mesa’s team met with the people of Añez and they decided that the de facto president of Bolivia will support Carlos Mesa,” Evo said in statements to Radio Rebelde in Buenos Aires.
He said that yesterday, during the Virtual Summit of Mercosur Presidents, “suspiciously”, with her clumsy speech Añez said that the elections will be guaranteed, “with joy and conviction”, for next September 6. “Surely they have been preparing this and today’s information confirms it, he remarked.
Evo commented that it is right that Mesa and Añez should unite because in the end both “have only one program” since the current usurpers of the government in Bolivia are because they are representatives of the “20 years of neoliberalism” that Bolivia had. He made reference to the parties: the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) which allied itself with Hugo Bánzer and Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada; the Democratic Nationalist Action (ADN) founded by the dictator Bánzer and the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) which applied the harsh neoliberal program in Bolivia with Víctor Paz Estenssoro and Sánchez de Lozada.
According to Morales, this morning’s meeting, which consolidated the alliance between Mesa and Añez, is now led by the same Carlos Mesa who was the vice president of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who after the Black October Massacre (2003) – with more than 60 dead and 500 wounded – fled to the United States where he was protected and unpunished.
He noted that the Trump administration was behind this and “was demanding that Añez withdraw her candidacy” after studies presented by Americans who advise Añez, currently showed she would be defeated soundly in the first round. These are the same advisors who worked with Sanchez de Lozada in his electoral campaign before 2003.
“They have to comply with the U.S. mandate,” exclaimed Morales, assuring that Mesa, Añez, Tuto, and Camacho to firmly re establish the neoliberal economic and social policy in Bolivia.
“What interests us most is that there be elections and now the elections are guaranteed,” he said, insisting that in the face of MAS “everyone is from the right,” the same neoliberals who governed between 1985 and 2005.
The former president, who has been a refugee in Argentina since December 12, 2019, said that the U.S. and the right-wing are desperate because, according to their polls, MAS will win the Sept. 6 elections in the first round by more than 20%.
With the Mesa-Añez alliance, Evo believes that they are attempting to position themselves to go to a second-round but they will not succeed because “the people are outraged with the right-wing and with Añez’s management and her dictatorship”.
“The new generations have realized how to live with the right and how to live with a coup d’état. The same business class see that the economy has been destroyed. There is no state presence. There is begging, poverty is growing. In eight months they have destroyed the economy,” he added.
Source: Plurinacional, Translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau