October 12, 2021
Luis Arce, photo: EFE
The president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Luis Arce, warned that the opposition intends to create conditions for a new “coup d’état” in the country, with protests and paralysis of activities that were partially showing up in some regions.
“The anti-democratic conspiracy has not been defeated with last year’s elections, it is raising its head again, provoking disturbances and disunity among Bolivians to create the conditions for a new coup d’état, which, if successful, would ruin all our struggle to promote the projects we have planned,” said the president while participating in the World Meeting of the Peoples for Our Mother Earth in La Paz.
Arce added: “All the actions and efforts that we are carrying out in our country run the risk of being diluted and paralyzed, because they affect the economic interests of the established privileged”.
Thus, the President rejected the strike and the mobilizations against the bill against the Legitimization of Illicit Profits that yesterday brought together a large part of the opposition in marches and rallies.
First opposition march in Arce’s administration
The work stoppage called by civic organizations formed by institutions opposed to the Government, which joined the mobilization initially called by the trade unions against the illicit profits bill, took place this Monday in the eastern department of Santa Cruz.
In the city of Cochabamba, capital of the department of the same name, there were also some blockades, as well as in the city of La Paz and in the departments of Tarija and Potosí.
The Ministry of Labor stated that activities were “completely normal” in eight of the nine departments and the protest did not affect production, manufacturing, government and banking services, urban and long distance transportation, nor commercial flights.
“The construction of a historic democratic bloc is just beginning with this first strike; let’s not expect great things. It is a process,” explained Manuel Morales, leader of the National Committee for the Defense of Democracy (Conade), one of the groups that called for the protest and that in 2019 mobilized against the government of Evo Morales.
The response by the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, highlighted via Twitter that the low reaction to the measure was “a message that the Bolivian people are giving to those who call for strikes; the people want to work for the economic reactivation”.
Santa Cruz, governed by Luis Fernando Camacho, one of the architects of the 2019 coup, was one of the strong locations of the strike that included the stoppage of public or private transportation and most of the stores closed.