Blatant military coup in Bolivia

[PyramidHead]

Evo Morales has resigned the presidency of Bolivia after pressure from the military, and is now in exile in Mexico.

The chain of events leading to this should be familiar:

-South American nation, rich in a resource (in this case lithium) craved by Western capitalist powers
-Popular leftist leader who has unambiguously improved the lives of citizens
-Election system that is unfamiliar enough to Americans that procedural irregularities can be leveraged as propaganda

Like clockwork, less than a week after Morales announced he would not enter into commerce with European governments to sell their lithium to multinational corporations, a right-wing force has toppled the leader from power and ousted him from the country.

The Morales move on Nov. 4 to cancel the December 2018 agreement with Germany's ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA) came after weeks of protests from residents of the Potosí area. The region has 50% to 70% of the world's lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.

Among other clients, ACISA provides batteries to Tesla; Tesla's stock rose Monday after the weekend.

A few days before Morales resigned, audio was leaked of a call in which opposition leaders mention US Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in discussing the coup:

The Radio Education Network of Bolivia (Erbol) leaked 16 audios involving opposition leaders who are calling for a coup d'etat against the government of President Evo Morales, a political action which would have been coordinated from the U.S. embassy in the Andean country.

Among those mentioned in the audios are the U.S. senators Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez and Ted Cruz, who have would maintained contact with the Bolivian opposition in order to achieve a possible regime change in the South American country.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

This is a tragedy for the Bolivian people and for the world. Morales presided over dramatic gains in literacy, reductions in poverty, and sustained economic growth over the past decade in Bolivia, and without the inflationary outcomes that have occurred in places like Venezuela. Whenever someone like that comes to power in South or Central America, the CIA is not far behind with a preferred right-wing alternative who is complacent and friendly to market neoliberalism. The media dutifully report the state department's version of events, of course, and provide just the right amount of vague detail to convince the ignorant that democracy, and not the wholesale pillaging of a nation's natural and social resources, is victorious after events like this.

And as usual, the right people have the right takes on it in politics. Trump and Bolsnaro are hailing the situation as a win. Jeremy Corbyn, AOC, and Bernie Sanders are pointing out the obvious, that this was a military takeover in Latin America just like all the others.

Ben Norton has an excellent Twitter breakdown of the pattern.

Bolivia's right-wing opposition coup leaders like Luis Fernando Camacho have been conspiring with the US-appointed Venezuelan coup leaders.

They are all part of the same network of elite right-wingers, supported by the US and backed by rich capitalists.

These photos show Bolivia's right-wing coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho meeting with US-backed Venezuelan coup leader Gustavo Tarre in August—2 months BEFORE the election which Evo Morales won fairly.

This coup was PLANNED. And it just succeeded, with help from the US government.

Right out of the woodwork, Twitter bots have begun to appear and spread copy-pasted disinformation about the coup:

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I hate it when people claim things without backing them up.

Bolivia apparently, has seen a substantial reduction in poverty since 2005. GDP growth has been pretty good.

Of course, with Bolivia being located in South America, we don't know anything about anything in the nation, especially because there is no World Cup or Olympics occurring there. There was a referendum after Morales won a third term to see if there should be term limits. The referendum passed, however, was overruled by the nation's largest court.

Morales and Bolivia... and American sentiment, seem to be running a familiar course.

 

[PyramidHead]

I hate it when people claim things without backing them up.

Bolivia apparently, has seen a substantial reduction in poverty since 2005. GDP growth has been pretty good.

Of course, with Bolivia being located in South America, we don't know anything about anything in the nation, especially because there is no World Cup or Olympics occurring there. There was a referendum after Morales won a third term to see if there should be term limits. The referendum passed, however, was overruled by the nation's largest court.

Morales and Bolivia... and American sentiment, seem to be running a familiar course.

Familiar indeed, re: Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I hate it when people claim things without backing them up.

Bolivia apparently, has seen a substantial reduction in poverty since 2005. GDP growth has been pretty good.

Of course, with Bolivia being located in South America, we don't know anything about anything in the nation, especially because there is no World Cup or Olympics occurring there. There was a referendum after Morales won a third term to see if there should be term limits. The referendum passed, however, was overruled by the nation's largest court.

Morales and Bolivia... and American sentiment, seem to be running a familiar course.

Familiar indeed, re: Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile...

Chile and Venezuela were a bit different seeing that the US attempted (succeeded in Chile) to remove the leader before things really even got started. Morales has been in charge of the country for 14 years now. Which winning a fourth term gets to be a bit much and suspicious, but if the economy has been growing and poverty declining, one can make a competent argument that he won a fourth term because he is doing a good job.

 

[PyramidHead]

I hate it when people claim things without backing them up.

Bolivia apparently, has seen a substantial reduction in poverty since 2005. GDP growth has been pretty good.

Of course, with Bolivia being located in South America, we don't know anything about anything in the nation, especially because there is no World Cup or Olympics occurring there. There was a referendum after Morales won a third term to see if there should be term limits. The referendum passed, however, was overruled by the nation's largest court.

Morales and Bolivia... and American sentiment, seem to be running a familiar course.

Familiar indeed, re: Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile...

Chile and Venezuela were a bit different seeing that the US attempted (succeeded in Chile) to remove the leader before things really even got started. Morales has been in charge of the country for 14 years now. Which winning a fourth term gets to be a bit much and suspicious, but if the economy has been growing and poverty declining, one can make a competent argument that he won a fourth term because he is doing a good job.

Yes, this is what I mean about different places having different electoral systems. Term limits do not make sense in a country whose survival depends upon enacting long-term strategies just to keep the vultures at bay.

 

[laughing dog]

In 2016, the people of Bolivia rejected a constitutional amendment that allowed for Presidents to run for a third consecutive term. The Bolivian Supreme Court ruled that term limits in the Constitution violated the American Convention for Human Rights.

Whatever one thinks of Mr. Morales, the people of Bolivia did not want him to run for a 3rd term.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In 2016, the people of Bolivia rejected a constitutional amendment that allowed for Presidents to run for a third consecutive term. The Bolivian Supreme Court ruled that term limits in the Constitution violated the American Convention for Human Rights.

Whatever one thinks of Mr. Morales, the people of Bolivia did not want him to run for a 3rd term.

Fourth term. Results of referendum was Brexit-like. Morales originally said he'd abide by the vote, though. He did change his mind later.

 

[laughing dog]

In 2016, the people of Bolivia rejected a constitutional amendment that allowed for Presidents to run for a third consecutive term. The Bolivian Supreme Court ruled that term limits in the Constitution violated the American Convention for Human Rights.

Whatever one thinks of Mr. Morales, the people of Bolivia did not want him to run for a 3rd term.

Fourth term. Results of referendum was Brexit-like. Morales originally said he'd abide by the vote, though. He did change his mind later.

Vote results matter. The people spoke via that vote. Morales went back on his word. And there was a public movement to get him out. Whether the US was involved or whether there was a coup, I don't know. But the OP conveniently omits the popular sentiment.

 

[blastula]

But he won the election anyway.

 

[Trausti]

 

[PyramidHead]

In 2016, the people of Bolivia rejected a constitutional amendment that allowed for Presidents to run for a third consecutive term. The Bolivian Supreme Court ruled that term limits in the Constitution violated the American Convention for Human Rights.

Whatever one thinks of Mr. Morales, the people of Bolivia did not want him to run for a 3rd term.

Fourth term. Results of referendum was Brexit-like. Morales originally said he'd abide by the vote, though. He did change his mind later.

Irrelevant.

1. His term ends in January 2020. It's November 2019. This is a coup.
2. The supreme court in Bolivia is the law of Bolivia, whether Evo's opponents or American people on the internet like it or not. This is a coup.
3. The quick vote tally was consistent with the polling results in predicting a win for Evo. The official count was never performed. This is a coup.
4. The entire line of presidential succession, not just Evo, was arrested or exiled to make way for a rabid fundamentalist Pentacostal to assume the presidency.



Translation:

"I dream of a Bolivia that is free of satanic indigenous rituals. The city is not for indians, they should go to the highlands or the chaco!!"

THIS IS A COUP.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In 2016, the people of Bolivia rejected a constitutional amendment that allowed for Presidents to run for a third consecutive term. The Bolivian Supreme Court ruled that term limits in the Constitution violated the American Convention for Human Rights.

Whatever one thinks of Mr. Morales, the people of Bolivia did not want him to run for a 3rd term.

Fourth term. Results of referendum was Brexit-like. Morales originally said he'd abide by the vote, though. He did change his mind later.

Vote results matter.

Yes and no. The nation's biggest court said the election didn't matter. Did I mention that it was a new court established under his rule?

The people spoke via that vote.

Much like Brexit, I'm not big on bare majorities changing the Constitution.

Morales went back on his word. And there was a public movement to get him out. Whether the US was involved or whether there was a coup, I don't know. But the OP conveniently omits the popular sentiment.

This is where things get fuzzy. The whole "public movement" thing.

It seems the biggest problem stems from the release of the election results. They kind of paused and then when it started up again, they announced he won and didn't need a run off.

Questions about the vote counting first arose after initial results trickled out of the election tribunal in the hours after the polls closed on Sunday. These numbers suggested that Mr. Morales would fall short of the 10-point margin.

Then the vote-count announcements ground to a halt, and suspicions arose that Mr. Morales, the longest-sitting leader in Latin America — he has been in office since 2006 — was not ready to relinquish power.

Irrelevant.

1. His term ends in January 2020. It's November 2019. This is a coup.
2. The supreme court in Bolivia is the law of Bolivia, whether Evo's opponents or American people on the internet like it or not.

He technically established that court, though I haven't been able to find out how the court's members are assigned.

3. The quick vote tally was consistent with the polling results in predicting a win for Evo. The official count was never performed.

There was no 'quick tally' from what I've read. There were initial results spurting out and then it stopped.

4. The entire line of presidential succession, not just Evo, was arrested or exiled to make way for a rabid fundamentalist Pentacostal to assume the presidency.

This indeed is an odd part of this. Jeanine Anez Chavez took power, because she was "next" in line, but "next" was a bit of a way below The President of Bolivia.

THIS IS A COUP.

The all caps doesn't make something so.

It is real hard to really know what is going on in situations like this due to the iron curtain between the US and South America. We don't know crap about these countries and their governments. Morales wasn't exactly Mr. Radical. His improvements in Bolivia appeared sustainable. It did require some redistribution of national resource wealth, but ultimately, the economy was able to grow (even during the '08 Global recession), and he was able to attract foreign investment. Inflation was also kept under control. It seemed like the dream left-wing leadership.

The articles I read talk about protests in the thousands, not tens of thousands. There are people in the street, but the streets aren't packed with people. This has the feel of fake partisan protesting... but President Morales also stepped back on his word on a fourth term. The results came out suspiciously. Those in the region questioned the results posted.

As I noted, this isn't Venezuela or Chile, where right-wing forces with America's blessing attempted to end new Presidencies. The situation in Bolivia is muddled. Denial of that is simply partisan.

 

[PyramidHead]

In Bolivia, to win an election a candidate must have either more than 50% of the vote or more than 40% AND a more than 10% lead over the opposition.

The initial results of the quick count (at 83% counted) had the results to close to call, which leads to a runoff, and Morales' opponent was telling the media that this guaranteed him moving into a second round. But this was not the official count, and not even complete. But at that point, the official count had already begun. To avoid the confusion of having two counts happening simultaneously, Morales stopped the quick count and let the official count proceed. However, the media wanted the results of the quick count, and Morales' mistake was to succumb to that pressure.

With 95.63% of the votes counted officially, Morales was the candidate with more than 40% of the votes and more than 10% above his opponent. This is because of Morales' support in rural parts of Bolivia, which are always later than urban parts in voting. Morales was willing to comply with the results of the official count, AND to abide by an audit of the results, but the military did not allow this to happen.

Morales wasn't exactly Mr. Radical. His improvements in Bolivia appeared sustainable. It did require some redistribution of national resource wealth, but ultimately, the economy was able to grow (even during the '08 Global recession), and he was able to attract foreign investment. Inflation was also kept under control. It seemed like the dream left-wing leadership.

Which is why he could not be allowed to continue leading Bolivia. More specifically, he could not be allowed to continue controlling the country's immense supply of lithium, which is needed for rechargable batteries. The stock market response to the coup is worth posting, as a cui bono? to punctuate all this:

The company whose deal he rejected, ACI Worldwide:


Tesla, whose electric car platform is entirely dependent on Bolivian lithium:


As for the involvement of Western powers, it has all the hallmarks of an American-backed coup, especially now that the new leader is just like all the ones installed by America in other places where popular leftist leaders won elections. The Twitter campaign is especially blatant evidence that there is a concerted effort to sway social media. Hilariously, the hashtag #BoliviaNoHayGolpe (broken Spanish for "no coup [in] Bolivia") was apparently trending in Virginia over the weekend, which isn't exactly known for its Bolivian expat population... but is the headquarters of the CIA.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But he won the election anyway.

If the vote was for a measure that wouldn't even allow him on the ballot it seems strange that he could get a majority of votes in the election. That strongly suggests ballot tampering was behind his win.

 

[PyramidHead]

But he won the election anyway.

If the vote was for a measure that wouldn't even allow him on the ballot it seems strange that he could get a majority of votes in the election. That strongly suggests ballot tampering was behind his win.

Not according to CEPR.

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of CEPR, noted that it was very unusual, and highly questionable, for the OAS to issue a press statement questioning election results without providing any evidence for doing so. He noted that the OAS preliminary report on the election also provided no evidence that anything was wrong with the vote count.

“The OAS press statement of October 21 and its preliminary report on the Bolivian elections raise disturbing questions about the organization’s commitment to impartial, professional, electoral observation,” said Weisbrot. “The OAS should investigate to find out how such statements, which may have contributed to political conflict in Bolivia, were made without any evidence whatsoever.”

The paper verifies that historic voting tendencies favoring Morales in later-reporting polling areas explain why the gap between Morales and Mesa widened as votes were counted, ending with an official result that put Morales ahead of Mesa by 10.57 points.

The paper also shows that the respective voting trends for Morales and Mesa were consistent, contrary to the OAS’s early postelection statements: “Neither the quick count nor the official count exhibit sudden changes in trends in the final results, and the same well-known trend, explainable by geography, is evident in both counts.”

“We encourage anyone interested in what happened in Bolivia’s elections to do their own examination of the tally sheets and their own statistical analysis,” Long said. “Hopefully, the OAS electoral mission will do that. But we also need to remember that an OAS electoral mission overturned election results in Haiti in 2011 with no statistical or other basis for doing so.”

No Evidence That Bolivian Election Results Were Affected by Irregularities or Fraud, Statistical Analysis Shows

Nor the poll tracking leading up to the election. From 6 polls:

 

[blastula]

But he won the election anyway.

If the vote was for a measure that wouldn't even allow him on the ballot it seems strange that he could get a majority of votes in the election. That strongly suggests ballot tampering was behind his win.

No, it lost by a slim majority 3 years earlier.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But he won the election anyway.

If the vote was for a measure that wouldn't even allow him on the ballot it seems strange that he could get a majority of votes in the election. That strongly suggests ballot tampering was behind his win.

No, it lost by a slim majority 3 years earlier.

One thing applies to modifying their constitution, the other is a direct referendum on the President. Doesn't conclude funny stuff isn't possible, but certainly it isn't impossible for an amendment to pass, but in the end people vote based on the weight of the wallet.

 

[blastula]

Though Morales should have probably just approved of a successor to lead his party and campaigned for them.

 

[PyramidHead]

Though Morales should have probably just approved of a successor to lead his party and campaigned for them.

That's kind of a Western-skewed appraisal of the situation I keep hearing thrown around. The fact is that colonized nations emerging from a period of sustained oppression take a long time to develop, and having consistent leadership throughout that process is quite often the most beneficial strategy. In any other context, it wouldn't make sense for someone to stop working on something they were excelling at and had many ideas for, just because an arbitrary amount of time has passed. The period of adjustment between leaders could open the door for opportunistic elements to dismantle what progress has been made; we need look no further than the United States to see obvious examples of this happening. Term limits are not a blanket proposal that should be applied to all countries in all circumstances.

 

[PyramidHead]

Totally legitimate acquisition of power, nothing unusual about this