The conflict between Evo Morales and Luis Arce for the Bolivian presidency in 2025 has not only split the ruling MAS party but also the social movements and labor unions that form its base.
wouldn't call it more polarized than ever (jacobin cmon), but seems like a not good situation tbh.
From my superficial understanding (also not having read the article) based on the news that came out about it around a month ago, Arce has staged a soft coup against Morales in the lead up to the next presidential election.
Arce has done some shifty things by appointing comprador union leaders, especially the less democratically appointed ones, to government positions or providing them with funding (or the promise of either/both) along with stacking the supreme court by permitting judges to extend their tenure beyond what is allowed for in the constitution. (Note that this is based on reports from people in Bolivia and it's not verified because there's fuck all news coverage of Bolivia and even less that I'd actually trust, especially given how Añez was handled with kid gloves while she was prosecuting a campaign of political repression and was found guilty of staging a coup and was being tried for genocide, y'know?)
The fact that the workers, peasants, and indigenous people were out blocking highways to support Morales in places like Cochabamba (naturally) while Arce supporters responded with counterprotests in the cities I think speaks to the composition of the different factions and their level of commitment.
The indigenous movements were split between Morales and Arce, according to reports though.
The backdrop to the issue with the courts is that Morales dismissed a ton of judges and it left the judiciary shorthanded. Morales appointed a significant amount of judges but on a provisional basis and he sought to reign in the judiciary because he took the angle that, essentially, what is referred to as an independent judiciary is what he deems to be a tool of capitalism and US imperialism.
That obviously sounds like the words of a would-be autocrat, at least superficially, but under the brief tenure of the Anez golpista regime, Anez leveraged her political power over the judiciary to get them to persecute and harass MAS leaders, so it's safe to say that what's going on in the Bolivian judiciary is a political battleground not unlike the struggle that occurred in Venezuela over the TSJ and the Constituent Assembly vs the National Assembly, and I'd say that it's a credible accusation tbh.
There is/was a massive backlog in the Bolivian court system due to Morales' dismissal of lots of judges so I expect that Arce would be taking the "stability and restoration of order" angle to argue for why judges who are sympathetic to his cause should have their tenure extended beyond what is permitted in the constitution "due to a state of emergency" in the courts. Obviously this is purely conjecture though.
wouldn't call it more polarized than ever (jacobin cmon), but seems like a not good situation tbh.
From my superficial understanding (also not having read the article) based on the news that came out about it around a month ago, Arce has staged a soft coup against Morales in the lead up to the next presidential election.
Arce has done some shifty things by appointing comprador union leaders, especially the less democratically appointed ones, to government positions or providing them with funding (or the promise of either/both) along with stacking the supreme court by permitting judges to extend their tenure beyond what is allowed for in the constitution. (Note that this is based on reports from people in Bolivia and it's not verified because there's fuck all news coverage of Bolivia and even less that I'd actually trust, especially given how Añez was handled with kid gloves while she was prosecuting a campaign of political repression and was found guilty of staging a coup and was being tried for genocide, y'know?)
The fact that the workers, peasants, and indigenous people were out blocking highways to support Morales in places like Cochabamba (naturally) while Arce supporters responded with counterprotests in the cities I think speaks to the composition of the different factions and their level of commitment.
The indigenous movements were split between Morales and Arce, according to reports though.
The backdrop to the issue with the courts is that Morales dismissed a ton of judges and it left the judiciary shorthanded. Morales appointed a significant amount of judges but on a provisional basis and he sought to reign in the judiciary because he took the angle that, essentially, what is referred to as an independent judiciary is what he deems to be a tool of capitalism and US imperialism.
That obviously sounds like the words of a would-be autocrat, at least superficially, but under the brief tenure of the Anez golpista regime, Anez leveraged her political power over the judiciary to get them to persecute and harass MAS leaders, so it's safe to say that what's going on in the Bolivian judiciary is a political battleground not unlike the struggle that occurred in Venezuela over the TSJ and the Constituent Assembly vs the National Assembly, and I'd say that it's a credible accusation tbh.
There is/was a massive backlog in the Bolivian court system due to Morales' dismissal of lots of judges so I expect that Arce would be taking the "stability and restoration of order" angle to argue for why judges who are sympathetic to his cause should have their tenure extended beyond what is permitted in the constitution "due to a state of emergency" in the courts. Obviously this is purely conjecture though.