What is the limit of the transitory nature of a transition government? Formally, it is the call for new national elections and the election of new authorities of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.  That is to say, normalize the institutionalism that gives origin to the establishment of political powers in the country. However, given the behavior of its ministers of Government, Presidency and Defence, in that order, and the declarations of the interim President, the objective is to nullify President Evo Morales and dismantle the MAS (Morales’ political movement) and the social organizations. To this end, they have already committed serious errors that could have harsh legal effects in the near future.

In the first semester of the coming year, Bolivia will have a new government, and therefore, a new correlation of parliamentary forces. In the creole tradition of Bolivian politics – and maybe that of Latin America –, whoever enters the government, in order to legitimate themselves, do not assume the errors of the previous government, while its virtues are assumed as their own.

The fact is that there are more than thirty dead and dozens of people wounded by bullets. The deaths occurred in the mobilizations in Cochabamba, in the municipality of Sacaba and in the city of El Alto, but the media discourse referred to a multitude of “mobs”, “vandals”, “MAS supporters”, “hired people”, “common delinquents”, “drunkards” and groups of irrational people who do not want the pacification of the country; and who, on the contrary, instigated violence, the ransacking of commercial buildings and private homes and who, with the road blockades and that of the fuel plant in Senkata (El Alto), were generating shortages of fuel and food in the cities.

In foolhardy declarations, reminiscent of the military dictatorships of the past century, the Minister of Government, Arturo Murillo, attacked the former ministers, saying that he would “hunt them down”. The Minister of Communication threatened journalists with criminal sanctions for misinforming and inciting violence. These declarations had no impact, but the complicit silence of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights, of Carlos Mesa and Waldo Albarracín (Rector of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés) who blame Evo for the deaths and violence.

This is the scenario at the present time: human beings who died of bullet wounds have no weight or value, there is only sadness in their families, the media buried them in forgetfulness. Today they are statistics. What is lamentable is that sectors of the middle class justified the actions of the police and the army, to the extent of bringing them food while they rested after the repression.

Today the dead bear no weight, but shortly, the dead will take on new life to levy criminal charges for the political decisions of those responsible.

This is the scenario that the transitional political, civic and police powers want to avert, attempting by any means to proscribe MAS from participation in future national, departmental and municipal elections. But impunity is not eternal; next year the electoral and post-electoral political scenario and the new power configuration, will allow for a reading that is not charged with all this negative subjectivity, deliberately constructed against the popular sectors.

This transitional period, that will make way for the new government, given the eternal mourning it has left, will face trials for responsibility and the question will be: will the new officials be willing to assume the negative moral effect, by defending the present authorities of the interim government?

This is one of the scenarios that will mark the next governmental administration and the level of tension with popular sectors. The triumphant smiles of today will be seen tomorrow as the sarcasm of those who do not believe in life.

It is a time of resistance, but also of hope; the dead will take on new life and will reclaim justice, because the storm will destroy itself.

12/12/2019

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)