latam

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.

I read that shitty Jacobin article, and yep, it's them peddling US state department lines again trying to paint Morales as some power-hungry autocrat (the only autocrat in history to lack an army apparently). The fact is Arce was expelled from the party. MAS outlined their reasons here: https://kawsachunnews.com/evo-morales-is-standing-for-the-presidency-luis-arce-expelled

1. Ratify Evo Morales as president of the MAS-IPSP.
2. Declare Evo Morales Ayma as the sole candidate of the MAS-IPSP for the Bicentennial elections 2025 – 2030.
3. That in the 2025 elections, no alliance be made with other political parties.
4. In compliance with the current statutes, all candidates for other positions must be members with at least 10 years of seniority.
5. Instances of betrayal be sent to the disciplinary committee to consider their expulsion from the political party.
6. Declare maximum alert and state of emergency to avoid the banning of the MAS-IPSP and protect the candidacy of Evo Morales for the national elections.

1. Ratify the legal and legitimate consensual support for brother Evo Morales, as president of the national leadership of the MAS-IPSP
2. Brother Commander Evo Morales Ayma is confirmed and declared by consensus as the only candidate for the bicentennial
3. While the process of requesting and registering these results within a duly reasonable period, the new board must convene the next congresses; Organic congress to review the statutes, Political congress, Congress to discuss the bicentennial agenda
4. The corresponding disciplinary and ethics court is instructed to initiate legal actions for expulsion from the MAS-IPSP, against elected authorities who were denounced during the development of this commission, among them deputies, senators, and other authorities for betrayal of the political instrument MAS IPSP, expulsion of the representative, Deysi Choque, expulsion of the councilor Leydi Guzmán Arispe, expulsion of the departmental assembly member Raquel Valencia Aspeti, expulsion of the substitute deputy Samuel Mamani Sánchez, expulsion of the departmental assembly member Jorge Antonio Isnado, expulsion of the national representative of Oruro Mirian Martines, expulsion of the Oruro deputy, Juan José Jauregui, expulsion of other brothers and sisters who betrayed the ideological principles of the MAS-IPSP, expulsion of the deputy Rolando Cuellar, and expulsion of a further 20 names
5. We urge and demand that the constitutional court express itself as soon as possible regarding the unconstitutional appeals filed against the MAS-IPSP
6. We repudiate any attempt to ban the MAS-IPSP
7. We repudiate the acts of violence at the CSUTCB congress in the city of El Alto.
8. The corresponding instances and channels must be respected regarding their delegates and election of candidates
9. The self-expulsion of Luis Arce Catacora and David Choquehuanca for not attending the MAS-IPSP congress is acknowledged
10. The reading of the protocol on depatriarchalization is available for consideration by the plenary session, by the congress.