DOUBLE TROUBLE: BOLIVIA´S LEFT WING IS AT WAR WITH ITSELF / THE ECONOMIST

Double trouble

Bolivia’s left wing is at war with itself

The feud is preventing the government from addressing a looming economic crisis

Meetings of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) used to be soporific affairs. 

Not any more. 

These days they erupt into brawls, with bottles and chairs soaring over the mêlée, before they are broken up with tear gas.

The change reflects a rift at the top of Bolivia’s governing party, where President Luis Arce and Evo Morales, a former holder of the post, are fighting to lead the mas into next year’s elections. 

It has paralysed the government, split the indigenous and labour groups that form the party’s base, and offered the opposition its first sniff of real power in almost 20 years.

In 2005 Mr Morales led the mas to win the first majority in Bolivian politics since the country returned to democracy in 1982. 

In the next election he won a supermajority in congress. 

The MAS has governed Bolivia for all-but-one year since. 

Mr Morales, a former coca grower who threw the US Drug Enforcement Agency out of Bolivia, became a leftist icon.

The hegemony cracked in 2019 when Mr Morales ran for an unconstitutional third consecutive term. 

He won, but allegations of fraud sparked protests. 

The army asked Mr Morales to resign, which he did, going into exile. 

An interim government took over for a year—a transition of power which the mas now views as a coup—before the mas swept back to power under Mr Arce, Mr Morales’s chosen candidate, in 2020. 

Mr Morales returned to Bolivia, eyeing the election due in 2025.

It soon became clear that Mr Arce wanted to stay in power. 

Mr Morales has the support of his ex-ministers and rural workers’ unions. 

Mr Arce, who lacks Mr Morales’s charisma, controls the state and its largesse. 

Until recently, many Bolivians thought Mr Arce the prudent economic choice, due to strong growth while he was finance minister under Mr Morales and low inflation since he became president. 

But a creaking economy is changing that.

The fight has hamstrung the government. 

Mr Arce cannot count on votes from legislators loyal to Mr Morales. 

This limits his response to an economic crisis stemming from the depletion of Bolivia’s foreign-exchange reserves. 

He has struggled to get legislative approval to take loans from multilateral development banks, and is unable to pass a law to let foreign companies extract Bolivian lithium. 

A meltdown would destroy Mr Arce’s reputation.

Attempts at reconciliation, such as holding a national party congress, have foundered; Messrs Arce and Morales each held their own and denied the legitimacy of the other. 

Mr Morales has challenged Mr Arce to compete with him in primaries, but the government insists that the constitution bars Mr Morales from running. 

Mr Morales warns of a “convulsion” in Bolivia if he is disqualified.

The opposition smells opportunity. 

Carlos Mesa, a former president, may well run again for Comunidad Ciudadana, a coalition of centrists. 

Luis Fernando Camacho, in pre-trial detention for an alleged role in the 2019 “coup”, may run for Creemos, a right-wing party. 

Many others have joined the race, all calling to unite the opposition. 

None of them seems to excite the voters. 

Only Messrs Morales and Arce can keep mas from power.