Analysis: what awaits Bolivia with the election of candidate Luis Arce – Latin America – International

The victory this Sunday in the presidential elections of Bolivia of Luis Arce, the dolphin of former president Evo Morales and candidate of the Movement to Socialism (MAS), was overwhelming and for some unexpected.

(Also read: Although without official data, the winner of the elections would be Luis Arce)

Now what many are wondering is whether the new Bolivian president will govern under the shadow of Evo or if he will distance himself from the former president, who is a refugee in Argentina and who yesterday assured that he will return to his country “sooner or later”.

Two exit polls of private firms gave Arce the winner with more than 50 percent of the votes against his rival, the centrist Carlos Mesa, who was left 20 points behind and who a year ago had already disputed the presidency with Evo, in elections branded as fraudulent and that led to the resignation of the indigenous president.

“We have regained hope”Arce said in proclaiming his victory Sunday night.

In the midst of a slow electoral count and although the official results are not yet known, the interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez, acknowledged the victory of the MAS candidate.

(You may be interested: Bolivians go to the polls to decide whether to end the era of Evo Morales)

“We still do not have an official count, but from the data we have, Mr. Arce and Mr. (David) Choquehuanca (candidate for the vice presidency) have won the election. I congratulate the winners and ask them to govern with Bolivia and democracy in mind, ”Áñez tweeted.

Later, the triumph of Evo’s former minister was also recognized by Mesa. “The result of that quick count is very strong and very clear”Mesa said about the projections that give Evo’s dolphin victory.

But the recognition did not come only from Bolivia. The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, the USA, Mexico and Argentina, among others, congratulated Arce.

In fact, the head of US diplomacy for Latin America, Michael Kozak, stated that “President Trump and the United States hope to work with the Bolivian elected government in shared interests” of its citizens. And the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, stressed that the elections were peaceful.
Analysts estimate that Arce’s resounding victory was due to Evo’s unconditional support among indigenous people, who make up 41 percent of Bolivia’s 11 million inhabitants.

(Read here: Interim President of Bolivia retires from electoral race)

Furthermore, the MAS rivals did not come together to the election, nominating seven candidates, although two withdrew in recent days in a vain attempt to rally the anti-Evo vote.

The result of the projections is very similar to that of the 2005 elections, where the MAS began a hegemony of almost 14 years that will probably resume now with Arce, after the hiatus produced by the political crisis of 2019.

The Ciesmori firm’s survey projects 52.4 percent for Arce, while the Tu Voto Cuenta poll points to 53 percent, percentages very similar to the 53.7 percent obtained by Evo in his first election in 2005.

Now the challenge is for the president-elect, who, according to political scientist María Teresa Zegada, from the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, must make it clear if he plans to govern with “Autonomy” against Morales or if he will follow the “Evo line.”

As Marcelo Arequipa, a doctor in Political Science and professor at the Bolivian Catholic University, told EL TIEMPO, “with Arce’s victory it is demonstrated that in Bolivia there is more ‘masism’ (in reference to the MAS party) than evism. That is, there is already a historical current installed in favor of the MAS. In general, in Bolivia, when a political leader is not a candidate, the party tends to disappear, and in this case it is not, things have not gone in that direction”.

(Read here: Evo Morales is disqualified from running for the Senate)

Arequipa refers to the doubts surrounding the figure of Arce, about whom there were deliberate questions about whether he would be able to consolidate the different sectors that make up the MAS and that historically had surrounded Evo.

“This is not a vote for Evo Morales: it is a victory thanks to Luis Arce and that they have been able to cast both. During the campaign a message of self-criticism was sent regarding what they did in the past and that they will not allow the evism to return ”.

For her part, Cristina Echeverri, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations at the Javeriana University, in dialogue with EL TIEMPO, mentioned that the role of Morales should not be minimized, who continues to be an important figure in Bolivia and in the MAS .

(You may be interested: Bolivian Government adds another complaint against Evo Morales)

“Some of the characteristics of the MAS (as a party) is the articulation with the base movements and social groups of the country, and the one who continues to build these relationships is Evo Morales”Echeverri clarified.

Arce, undoubtedly, benefited from the political capital built for decades by Morales and from the role played by the former president during the electoral season, who served as his campaign manager from Argentina and who is under an arrest warrant in Bolivia for terrorism and financing. of terrorism.

The former president resigned last year after losing the support of the armed forces, in the midst of a crisis triggered by allegations of fraud in an election in which he was seeking his fourth consecutive term.

But if there’s one thing analysts agree on, it’s that, as Zegada says, “It is necessary to heal the wounds among Bolivians, although it will not be such an automatic process.”

Arce’s profile

Luis Arce is a 57-year-old economist who studied at the state-run Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz and did a master’s degree at the British University of Warwick.
He worked 18 years at the Central Bank, where he held various positions, and was Minister of Economy and Finance for most of Morales’ term, with a hiatus of 18 months.
He has a more technocratic than political profile.

Under Morales, Bolivia raised its gross domestic product (GDP) from $ 9.5 billion annually to $ 40.8 billion and reduced poverty from 60 to 37 percent, according to official data.

The bonanza made it possible to pay bonuses to thousands of pregnant women, school children and the elderly, and millionaire investments to try to industrialize lithium and natural gas.

“We made appropriate decisions that led our country to lead various economic and social indicators in the region”Arce said when he was appointed MAS presidential standard-bearer (in January).

(Read here: Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office accuses Evo Morales of terrorism)

With darts to the transitory government of Jeanine Áñez, Arce campaigned affirming that “The economy is not a game”, a way in which he showed himself as an expert on the goings-on of the Bolivian economy.

The father of three children, Arce was born on September 28, 1963 in La Paz, into a middle-class family. His parents were teachers.

His origin and training are different from those of Morales, who was born into a family of modest peasants and llama herders, worked throughout his childhood, so he went to school for a short time.

Arce always led the polls, favored by Morales’ political capital, but also by questions about the former president’s victory in October 2019 in elections that were later annulled. The interim government and the other candidates directed all their artillery against the MAS standard-bearer during the campaign..

In addition, the Attorney General’s Office, dependent on the Áñez government, accused him of “Illicit enrichment” while he was minister, a position that Arce denied.

(Also read: Who is Luis Arce, the presidential candidate of Evo’s party?).

The right-wing candidate Luis Fernando Camacho affirmed during the electoral season that “Luis Arce is not a candidate, he is a puppet of the dictator Evo Morales”. For his part, the right-wing former Bolivian president Jorge Quiroga described him as the “Waste teller”, for the millionaire spending on public works.

Mesa, meanwhile, assured that the economic achievements of Arce and Morales were not “On his own merit”, but achieved thanks to the high prices of raw materials “that no government has ever received” in Bolivia.

“The result was palaces, airplanes, luxuries, waste, corruption. The person in charge, obviously, was President Morales, but in particular his Minister of Finance ”, affirmed his direct rival throughout the race, Carlos Mesa, during the campaign.

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* With information from agencies