By Angel Guerra Cabrera, journalist and member of the Secretariat of In Defense of Humanity  

The United States imperialist offensive against the people in Latin America and the Caribbean is beginning a new phase, showing clear fascist tendencies in some countries. Though this is not the only symptom, a clear example of it is the US obsessive effort to kill through hunger and ill health to the Venezuelan and Cuban people, solely to stop them from exercising their sacred human right of self-determination. Another example is the cynical and crazy “anti-terrorist” crusade through Latin America convened last week in Bogota by State Secretary Mike Pompeo and Colombia’s sub- president Ivan Duque, shaking hands with their puppet Juan Guaido.

Precisely due to such a hostile context, nominating Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca as candidates to President and Vice-President of Bolivia by the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in the elections next May 3rd gains greater political relevance.

Evo Morales fostered their nomination in a crowded meeting in Argentina with members of the MAS party and representatives of the Pact of Unity signed by Bolivian social movements. They initially proposed Choquehuanca as President and young cocalero leader Andrónico Rodriguez as vice-president but they then agreed with Evo’s intelligent reasoning in the pursuit of more unity, representativeness, and electoral efficiency.

The goal is to win in the first round just as they did last October 20th, which was cut short by the never-proven fraud alleged by the Organization of American States (OAS). Morales explained that the Arce-Choquehuanca electoral ticket achieves unity between rural and urban, and between scientific knowledge and the ancient indigenous world. He stressed that Arce safeguards the economy because he was the economic and finance minister in Evo’s three administrations, except for a brief period.  Arce is undoubtedly responsible for the successful economic model that enabled Bolivia not only to grow economically, outpacing the rest of Latin America and Caribbean but also to take millions of citizens out of poverty and extreme poverty. From an early age, Arce was a militant with the distinguished leader Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz’s Socialist Party. His first readings in economics were not in college classrooms but in Marxist study groups. He completed a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in economics at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. As a university professor, he worked on Morales’ first electoral campaign in 2005; he joined Morales’ first Administration as soon as he was elected; and shortly after he assumed the position of Minister of the Economy continuously for almost 14 years.

In turn, David Choquehuanca is one of Evo’s closest friends since the latter led the cocaleros in the Cochabamba tropical lowlands. He also boosted student struggles and Marxist study groups since he was very young. Meanwhile, he gained prestige as an advisor to peasant unions and took postgraduate studies in anthropology and history, as well as in the rights of native populations in the Bolivian universities of San Andres and The Cordilleras. He was Evo’s Foreign Minister for 11 years.  Choquehuanca then served as secretary to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and has been promoting the rights of Mother Earth and the native people’s cosmogony.

The moral, political, intellectual and humane superiority of this pair is evident when compared to the variety of opposition candidates they will face like Santa Cruz province neo-fascist Luis Fernando Camacho; neoliberal Carlos Mesa; the US super-puppet Tuto Quiroga, and others of the kind. Apparently, the self-proclaimed President wants to be a candidate too. But those people are nothing.

What is going to be very difficult, not only for Arce and Choquehuanca but for all the  MAS candidates is running in an election in a country under military rule, just coming out of two massacres, with a regime of political persecution of anyone holding a different opinion, including numerous MAS militants, activists, or simply indigenous, all of them persecuted, imprisoned, and in more than a few cases having suffered cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments, such as former Cabinet Minister Carlos Romero. Moreover, the media is completely serving the right wing and the international media has been given their orders to vilify MAS. Meanwhile, important MAS government officials are in asylum in Mexico’s embassy in La Paz, and are being refused safe conduct out of the country. MAS would win elections today according to all surveys. But the big question is if the alleged provisional government, whose only function was to pacify the country, and convene elections, is willing to give power back to the “savages,” as Mrs. Jeannine Añez called them, in the event they win. This is not a meaningless question as Bolivia’s dictatorship has given free reign to racism; took an abrupt turn on foreign policy, now completely subordinated to the United States; placed public companies in the hands of friends and relatives, and it’s acting as if they are going to stay around for a thousand years.

Source: La Pupila Insomne on January 28, 2020