October 14 2020
MAS campaign rally. Photo: Luis Arce
It was a historic wrap-up for the electoral campaign headed up by the presidential/VP team of the Movement Toward Socialism – Political Instrument for People’s Sovereignty (MAS-IPSP) party, with Luis Arce ( Lucho) and David Choquehuanca. This event occurred Wednesday, October 14 in the city of El Alto, where people gathered in anticipation of an electoral victory with over 50% of the votes, according to the candidates, who stated that the people are immortal, as is the Left party that by all the counts show us rising in the polls.
“This October 18, we will win with more than 50% of the votes in the ballot boxes and we will remember those who fell in the struggle for democracy and our heroes. The people are immortal, and the MAS is immortal because we are genuine representatives of the Bolivian people,” stated Arce in his fiery speech in El Alto, a bastion of the Process of Change, and the spear point of the defense of natural resources and the social struggles for recognition that cost the lives of dozens of people in the gas war of 2003 and the Senkata massacre of 2019.
Those who were killed in the bloody massacres of Senkata and Sacaba, perpetrated by the coup government of Jeanine Áñez, after the coup d’etat that overthrew the MAS government in November of last year, were remembered with a minute of silence accompanied with the notes of a trumpet, which were interrupted by shouts of “Glory to the Fallen!” once the homage was complete.
“After a bloody coup, we have lived a nightmare where the people have felt pain, grief and hunger. Racism, discrimination, and arrogance have returned but, Sisters and Brothers, they thought they were going to kill the MAS but we are here in El Alto to say to them; Here we are and we are alive. They had forgotten that the people are immortal,” the candidate affirmed to the people.
Arce maintained that, in 11 months of government, the Right-wing has shown their hunger for power, as they distributed the property of the country like spoils of war and robbed the Bolivian people at the same time as they demonstrated their inability to govern the country. “Our children and young people have not been able to attend classes, they robbed health and ventilators from us, they attacked public enterprises. Brothers, we will not allow this,” he said.
To these words thousands of workers, campesinos, youth, and professionals, among others, answered, “Se siente, Se siente, Lucho Presidente” (We can feel it! Lucho for President!) as they waved their blue banners which, seen from the Red Aerial Tramway – constructed as a project of the MAS – looked like a huge blue mosaic.
Arce continued,“The Right-wing has shown us that they know nothing about the needs of the people, they showed us that they don’t think like Bolivian people, and they don’t preserve Bolivian culture. And because of this, on October 18 the people will show up at the polling places to say that they need a president who knows the necessities.”
“We are the Majority,” shouted those present, and exploded with joy along with the fireworks and music of khnatus – Andean panpipe groups – and musical bands that gave flavor to the enormous gathering, in which El Alto leader Eva Copa and the candidates for representatives and senators of the MAS also participated.
“The Right-wing came the only way they could come; they came with weapons to massacre the Bolivian people. They are leaving us as a hungry people with a deep economic crisis, without education and healthcare. We have traveled with our Jilata comrade David through the nine provinces, where the people have given us a mandate to restore our country,” he stated.
During his turn, the candidate for vice-president maintained that, on October 18, “the people will return to the path of truth. We will govern with love; our people need to be loved by their sons; we will restore the country, our Process of Change, and we will restore our economic stability,” he declared.
“We will not be separated from our people; the millions have returned to govern ourselves for and by ourselves. We are the majority,” he assured the revolutionary city of El Alto, evoking the words of Indigenous Leader Tupac Katari: “I will return and I will be millions.”
Source: Prensa Binomio MAS-IPSP