Ballots Defeat Bullets: MAS Wins Historic Mandate in Post-Coup Bolivian Election
OCTOBER 26, 2020
BY BENJAMIN DANGL
Against all odds, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party won the October 18th elections in Bolivia with 55.1% of the vote. This is better than even Evo Morales did in 2005 with 53.75% support. It gives MAS President-elect Lucho Arce one of the biggest mandates in Bolivian history, and is in part a major endorsement of MAS policies and its 14 years in power.
The election took place a year after a coup overthrew former MAS President Evo Morales and installed right wing Senator Jeanine Áñez in power. Under Áñez and her notorious Government Minister Arturo Murillo, the government repressed dissidents and anti-coup activists, killing dozens and wounding hundreds of people in massacres in Sacaba and Senkata, Bolivia last November. They politically persecuted MAS figures, allies, and leftist activists over a tumultuous year leading up to the recent election.
The MAS victory is a rejection of the racist coup government. Áñez pushed the MAS down, but the party and its diverse base of supporters rose up and won.
The movements that defended democracy over this past year brought Bolivia to this historic moment. For weeks in August, massive road blockade protests organized by MAS-allied campesino, indigenous, and labor groups successfully pressured authorities to hold elections after months of delays.
Following its resounding victory at the polls, the MAS will enter government next month, raising many crucial questions.
How much will the party leadership change? The crisis of the past year has resulted in a diversity of new leadership rising up through the party ranks. For example, young MAS cocalero leaders Andrónico Rodríguez and Leonardo Loza were just elected as Senators in Cochabamba.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/26/ballots-defeat-bullets-mas-wins-historic-mandate-in-post-coup-bolivian-election/