Anti-government protesters have clashed with supporters of President Luis Arce in Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, as fears develop of additional unrest within the Andean nation mired in an economic crisis forward of subsequent 12 months’s presidential election.
Riot police and supporters of Arce gathered to defend the federal government on Monday night within the Plaza Murrillo, the central sq. in La Paz the place the primary presidential and legislative places of work are positioned, elevating fears of a serious confrontation.
Tensions rose as former President Evo Morales spoke to a big crowd and demanded that the federal government make cupboard modifications “inside 24 hours”, or face the wrath of 1000’s of protesters who he has led in a week-long march.
Morales declared that Bolivians had had “sufficient of betrayal and above all sufficient of corruption, safety of drug trafficking and financial mismanagement”.
For the final two days, acrid smoke from burning tyres and thick clouds of tear gasoline have stuffed the streets of El Alto, a sprawling metropolis on a plateau above the capital as protesters on both sides hurled firecrackers, do-it-yourself explosives and stones at one another, and riot police fired tear gasoline into the crowds.
Clashes between supporters of Morales and Arce have already left 34 individuals injured, in accordance with the authorities.
Leftist rivals
Arce and Morales have been as soon as shut allies, however at the moment are vying to steer Bolivia’s long-dominant occasion Motion Towards Socialism, identified by its Spanish acronym MAS, previous to the 2025 presidential vote.
In latest months, their energy battle has paralysed the federal government, exacerbated the depletion of Bolivia’s foreign-exchange reserves and fuelled road protests.
Arce, who served as minister of the financial system for a few years beneath Morales, earlier this 12 months denounced a supposed military coup attempt, which he blamed on his former ally.
On Sunday, Arce mentioned in a televised message that he wouldn’t grant Morales “the pleasure of a civil conflict”.
Morales is looking for to make a political comeback after he was thrown out of office in 2019 over alleged election fraud and was briefly compelled into exile. However he’s at present barred by the structure from working for an additional time period.
The standoff raised comparisons to earlier governments that have been toppled by mass protests, together with these resulting in the 2003 resignation of former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.
“It’s untimely to think about a resignation,” mentioned Jose Manuel Ormachea, a political scientist and member of Bolivia’s parliament affiliated with the opposition Citizen Group occasion, which additionally rejects Morales’s bid for an additional time period.
“The autumn of [Sanchez de Lozada] took place when the police joined the individuals in opposition to the federal government and the navy. At the moment, there is no such thing as a signal that the police or the navy have thought of abandoning Arce and becoming a member of Evo,” he advised Al Jazeera.
After the ultimatum from Morales, it’s unclear what occurs subsequent. “This was an enormous present of pressure by Evo. He confirmed his potential to mobilise nationally,” mentioned Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian-born political scientist at Florida Worldwide College (FIU) in Miami within the US.
“But it surely stays to be seen if Morales has sufficient power to march on Plaza Murillo and enter the palace,” he added, referring to the legislative constructing within the metropolis centre subsequent to presidential places of work.
![Former Bolivian President Evo Morales marches with supporters to the capital to protest against the government in El Alto, Bolivia, September 23, 2024. [AP Photo/Juan Karita]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AP24267519552415-1727134606.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514)
Poverty price
Since Morales returned from exile in 2020, he has retained widespread help amongst poor and Indigenous Bolivians, who symbolize nearly half the nation’s inhabitants of 11 million.
In 2021, the World Financial institution reported that 36.4 p.c of Bolivia’s inhabitants lived in poverty, and 11.1 p.c lived in excessive poverty.
Arce’s authorities has been hit by a drop in income from pure gasoline exports, coupled with a decline in manufacturing attributable to a scarcity of funding nationally. To compensate, Arce has been utilizing worldwide reserves to take care of home subsidies, which in flip has led to a greenback scarcity and the devaluation of the Bolivian peso.
‘March to Save Bolivia’
Morales has used the financial disaster as a political weapon to advertise his marketing campaign for an additional presidential bid, rallying his loyal base of coca farmers, Indigenous tribes and employees who’ve come to his defence with road protests, marches and highway blockades.
1000’s of Bolivians final week started a 200km (124-mile) “March to Save Bolivia” in an obvious effort to strain the Arce authorities.
The marchers stopped Sunday on their sixth day of strolling to sleep at an encampment close to El Alto, a metropolis of just about a million principally Indigenous residents that sits excessive above the capital in a canyon barely 20km (12 miles) under.
Morales has sought to painting the march as a mirrored image of Bolivia’s Indigenous highland tradition as a lot as a political problem to the Arce authorities, along with his supporters bearing multicoloured flags of the Indigenous Andean motion that the leftist chief has became a patriotic image.
Both sides blamed the opposite for the violence. Morales accused Arce’s authorities of deploying “paramilitary teams to incite violence” and busing officers into El Alto to fire up hassle — a declare echoed by Bolivia’s ombudsman.
“It’s very unhappy that this authorities doesn’t take note of its conscience,” mentioned Benita Cruz, a Morales supporter on the scene of Sunday’s clashes. “They’re repressing the poor and most humble individuals.”