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Bolivian Bourgeois Government Suspended in Mid-Air
The Mesa government … is a bourgeois government but it bears the marks
of
its peculiar conception and birth. One anecdote is enough. On the night
that
Mesa was to assume the presidency, he had to telephone the COB to ask
permission to go to the Congress to take the oath. Without a pass from
the
Workers’ Federation, the “president” ran the risk of not getting to the
parliament, or not getting there alive.
From the first day of his government, Mesa began a combination that
reminds
of Kirchner [the Argentine populist president] but in a framework of
greater
weakness. On the one side, there are spectacular “gestures,” speeches
catering to the arisen people. He is good at this. He comes from the TV
world.
A peasant assembly was held in the Plaza Murillo, and Mesa came out of
the
government place to embrace Mallku. On Nov. 1, All Saints Day (which
has a
great significance because it is a special day in the Aymara and other
indigenous cultures), he went to the cemetery, and the daily papers ran
headlines, “President Mesa prayed at the grave of a martyr of October.”
There he proclaimed his Aymara vocation, the union of the Pachamama [an
Indian god] with the Virgin Mary (El Diario, Nov. 3). A few days later,
he
put on a poncho, and thus marcarading as an Indian, handed over some
land
titles.
This had some initial success. People had compared him with Sanchez de
Lozada, who had a “dog’s face,” and could not even speak Spanish.
But like our Kirchner, Mesa says one thing and does another. He has not
responded positively to a single one of the demands that motivated the
rebellion. He has not repealed Hydrocarbons Law [that opened the way
for the
sale of Bolivian natural gas to foreign companies] he has not touched a
hair
on the head of the multinationals that drained the mining industry,
oil,
etc., he is continuing the “Zero Coca” policy dictated by Yankee
imperialism
against the peasants, and so on.
But that is where the resemblance ends. Mesa is in a qualitatively
weaker
position than Kircher. In the first place, he has no party of his own,
but
has to depend primarily on the MAS of Evo Morales, which provided two
ministers for his government. Although they do not formally belong to
the
party, they are attached to Evo Morales.
This brings us to a problem still graver for the bourgeoisie and the
regime
of colonial “democracy.” The two main bourgeois parties, the MNR
(Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) and the MIR (Movement of the
Revolutionary Left), were shattered by October, since they were the
main
government parties. Already in February, crowds were starting to burn
their
headquarters.
Another important party, the NFR (New Republican Force), based in the
Cochabamba region, had the bad idea of joining the government coalition
a
few months before Goni’s fall. Although it managed to get out of the
government before it fell, it was badly mauled.
So the bourgeoisie has the big problem that today it has no big parties
that
it directly controls. Evo Morales’s MAS is making every effort to
demonstrate that it is a “serious” party, able to administer the
bourgeois
state well, to play a role in Bolivia similar to Lula’s. But it does
not
seem that any significant section of the bourgeoisie is ready to rely
on it
yet.
Mesa’s “strength” lies precisely in his weakness. It is a sort of
Bonapartism without any strength of its own that stands up thanks to
the
support of other forces (which for the time being do not want to
overthrow
him).
On the far right, these are the U.S. embassy and the main bourgeois
sectors,
especially in Santa Cruz. On the “far left,” it is Evo Morales’ MAS and
other leaderships of the mass movement that are looking to “democracy”
and
not an anticapitalist solution.
Over and above the divisions in the bourgeoisie … its general line
today is
summed up in two slogans—“peace” and “democracy.”
“Peace” means “Enough mobilizations. Goni has resigned. Don’t ask for
for
more. No more blockades. Let the new president govern. Give Mesa time.”
“Democracy” does not mean doing the will of the people (who above all
want
to get out of their poverty), but “respect the constitution,” that is,
give
Mesa a free hand.
The following article is from issue no.32 (end of November) of
“Socialismo o
Barbarie,” the publication of the Movimiento al Socialismo, a
Trotskyist
party in Argentina. The article was also printed in the December 2003 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
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