The Collapse of the MAS revolution in Bolivia
US Role in Divisions in Bolivia’s MAS party The US goal was to remove Evo and Arce and elect a rightwinger in 2025. In April 2024 US chargé d’affaires in Bolivia, Debra Hevia: “We have been working for a long time to achieve change in Bolivia, time is vital for us, but, for it to be a real change, Evo and Arce have to leave power and close that chapter,” The US embassy will become more involved in strengthening those she calls “our allies, organizations, and collaborators….young people are our agents of change, and they are very, very important.”[as we saw in Nicaragua in 2018] The first step is to promote the internal division of the Movement towards Socialism and promote a single opposition candidate in the 2025 general elections to achieve the triumph of an outsider linked to the interests of Washington, who will allow the control of lithium and other natural resources by American companies.
Atilio Boron: Notes on the Bolivian political tragedy This ended a cycle that began with Evo’s victory in the 2005 presidential election. It should be emphasized that during this period the MAS electoral hegemony was overwhelming, winning a succession of six elections with percentages that, except in one case, soared well above 50% of the vote. This supremacy at the polls reflected MAS political hegemony and the leadership capacity of the undisputed leader of the popular movement, Evo Morales.
Javier Larraín, director of the magazine Correo del Alba, commented, “The process of decomposition of the MAS began in 2013, 2014, and if we remember that in 2019 it obtained the lowest vote ever under Evo, 47%, and (before that) it had lost a referendum whose result it ignored, then what we have been seeing is this decline.” Sacha Lorenti points out in “Preliminary Autopsy of the Elections in Bolivia” the government of Luis Arce did everything in its power to try to destroy the leadership of Evo Morales.
Álvaro García Linera, Evo’s Vice President, wrote on the eve of the election: “On the one hand, a mediocre economist who happens to be president and who believed he could displace the charismatic indigenous leader (Evo) by banning him from office. On the other, the leader who, in his twilight, can no longer win elections, but without whose support no one wins either, and who has taken revenge by helping to destroy the economy without understanding that in this immolation, he is also demolishing his own work. The final result of this miserable fratricide is the temporary defeat of a historic project and, as always, the suffering of the humble who were never taken into account by the two brothers intoxicated by personal strategies.”
Evo Morales’s triumphalist declarations extolling the 19.2% spoiled vote are surprising. According to him, this projects him as the leader of the opposition to the new reactionary regime. But this euphoria, obscures the ineffectiveness of the spoiled vote, its practical sterility, except when it is the prelude to an insurrectionary moment capable of challenging established power, something that this writer does not recognize at this moment in Bolivia.
In the new National Assembly in whose Senate the MAS has completely disappeared and retains a tiny minority in the Chamber of Deputies demonstrates that the null vote has only served to facilitate the right’s construction of the two-thirds of the votes needed to reform the State’s Political Constitution, nullifying the great advances embodied in that luminous constitutional piece that emerged from the rise of the MAS. And we know that, unlike the left, when the right has an opportunity, it acts swiftly and lethally.
Orinoco Tribune: PSUV’s Cabello: Bolivia’s Divided Left Betrayed Its People; Venezuela’s Essequibo Stance Unchanged United Socialist Party of Venezuela Secretary General Diosdado Cabello said the leftist division was the cause of the left’s defeat in Bolivia’s presidential elections, referring to this outcome as unfair to Bolivians. “What’s sad is… that comrades facing the historical enemy can’t agree or guarantee unity for their people. It is as if they forget what happens when the right governs.” He said that those who failed to reach agreement will face equal persecution under Bolivia’s upcoming right-wing government. “They divided the popular movement into factions without consensus… This injustice to Bolivians extends to global liberation movements.”
Fidel Castro: This country can self-destruct; this Revolution can destroy itself, but they can never destroy us; we can destroy ourselves, and it would be our fault Nov. 17, 2005 “Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that someone actually knew how to build socialism…. We forged this Revolution alone, against all risk, for many long years and we had realized that if the day ever come when we would be under direct attack by the US, no one would ever fight for us, nor would we ask anyone to do so. I was making reference to the USSR… We have a people who have learned to handle weapons; we have an entire nation which, in spite of our errors, holds such a high degree of culture, education and conscience that it will never allow this country to become their colony again. This country can self-destruct; this Revolution can destroy itself, but they can never destroy us; we can destroy ourselves, and it would be our fault.”
Press TV: Diego Seguera: Post-Morales era: Bolivia’s 20-year MAS cycle ends, Rightward Shift Begins The indigenous–farmer–union alliance that ruled the Plurinational State of Bolivia met its final stage of collapse with an astounding electoral defeat. It is only in fourth place that the first candidate from the left, Andrónico Rodríguez, appears with a meager 8.15%. MAS’ “official” candidate and Interior Minister, Eduardo del Castillo, fared even worse, finishing sixth with a mere 3.2%, behind yet another old face in Bolivian politics. Spoiled votes appear to have reached 19.2%, making them effectively the third-largest bloc in the election—another key element. In over 20 years of electoral history, spoiled ballots had ranged between 2% and 3%. The reason for the unprecedented jump was Evo Morales’ call to spoil ballots as a form of protest.
Until 2019, Bolivia had the fastest-growing economy in the entire hemisphere. The process was astounding. A wealth and land distribution policy reduced poverty (from 60% in 2005 to 35% in 2019, with extreme poverty dropping from 38% to 15%), bringing social and economic stability (the longest period in the nation’s history) and expanding the middle class to 58%. A very early rift between Arce and Morales set the stage for further conflict, infighting, and confrontation. MAS fragmented into factions—and factions within factions. Landmark sociopolitical achievements enshrined in the Constitution will most likely undergo a—probably violent—rollback process.
Francisco Dominguez: Bolivia: unprincipled left split causes electoral debacle Dominguez the history of the conflict and concludes:“The most depressing feature is the self-inflicted nature of the left defeat as there were no substantive political or programmatic basis for the MAS split that caused it. The two factions shared a set of beliefs stemming from principles enshrined in the constitution. All principles which both factions genuinely uphold and defend — principles far more important than any personal ambitions. The split spread like wildfire from the top down through all the MAS social organisations, fracturing their unity. Bringing about unity in Bolivia’s left will therefore be very complex because there is no authoritative body that can adjudicate on conflicts or differences. The people of Bolivia have a long history of resistance and struggle; it will not be easy for the oligarchy to roll back the plurinational state. We, in the international field, must prompt ourselves to organise solidarity with the coming heroic struggles of the people of Bolivia.”
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Venezuela Mobilizes Five Million against the New US Military Threat
Peoples Dispatch: US sends troops to southern Caribbean in new threat to Venezuela US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed August 14 he is sending troops to the southern Caribbean Sea to carry out military operations. He said the goal is to arrest Latin American drug traffickers and linked one of these groups to Venezuelan President Maduro. Rubio reinforced, without presenting evidence, the White House story that Maduro is the leader of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), an alleged criminal organization. On July 25, the US State Department classified the group as an international terrorist group.
The decision follows Trump signing a secret executive order directing the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels considered terrorists. The order authorizes direct military operations at sea and in other countries. The Venezuelan government has actually dealt a severe blow to drug trafficking, and are part of Venezuelan police operations against the far right, which attempted to organize terrorist attacks, something that was denounced and dismantled by security forces.Former extreme-neoliberal congresswoman and opposition figure María Corina Machado thanked the Republican president on Thursday for “pressuring to defeat this criminal organization”.
TeleSur: Venezuela’s Five Million Strong Bolivarian Militia Embodies the ‘War of All the People’ About 5 million militiamen are involved in more than 600,000 patrols, President Maduro revealed, at all territorial levels: states, municipalities, parishes and communes. He also ordered the integration of the Bolivarian Militia into the existing “Peace Quadrants” in 5,336 community circuits across the country. Militia units are classified into three types according to their objectives: General use: Mobile units designed to operate across a state or several municipalities; Territorial use: Units tasked with defending a city or significant targets within a defined area; and Local use: Units intended to defend specific economic and political targets in a locality, or to help maintain public order. Venezuela also has the National Reserve, made up of citizens not in active military service, those who have completed military service, or those who voluntarily join reserve units.
Orinoco Tribune: President Maduro Hails Militia Enlistment Success as Venezuelans Join Massively Amid US Aggression “We have seen a gigantic expression of nationalism, patriotism and love for Venezuela.” Maduro emphasized that the entire population has begun the process of enlisting in the ranks of the Bolivarian Militia, in both territorial and combat corps. “Together with their families and communities, they are taking the step to join the national defense system that the country has built over the years and that guarantees us peace, the full exercise of national sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Whoever does not admire the history of our homeland and its right to sovereignty and self-determination has lost their soul. They have already lost their life. They are zombies.”
TeleSur: President Maduro Thanks Courage and Patriotism of the Venezuelan People During the Great Enrollment Day and Call to the Ranks of the Bolivarian Militia, President Maduro described the massive mobilization of the people throughout the country as “beautiful” and “successful…Both the territorial force and combatant corps, reservists, and citizens who, together with their families and communities, are stepping forward to join the national defense system that the country has built over these years, are the ones who guarantee territorial integrity.” These massive mobilizations reflect the desire of the Bolivarian people to preserve the Zone of Peace in Latin America and the Caribbean, avoiding violent confrontations. Maduro denounced disinformation campaigns that try to link the Venezuelan government with drug trafficking to justify an armed aggression.
Venezuela-New.com: Alex Saab, facing threats from the US empire: “Don’t let them dare, because there is a people here united to defend themselves.” Alex Saab attended Plaza Bolívar in Caracas where he participated in the Bolivarian Militia’s enlistment rally in defense of Venezuela’s peace, sovereignty, and integrity against threats from imperialism. Saab, who is also president of the International Center for Productive Investment (CIIP), responded to US imperialism’s threats of interventionism: “Let them not dare because there is a people here united to defend themselves… “Venezuela is united, and it shows here, everyone heeding the call of President Nicolás Maduro. We all stand with President Nicolás Maduro and with Venezuela.”
Venezuelanalysis: Keeping Up With the Venezuelan Economy Venezuela is now up to 17 consecutive quarters of economic growth. Government and Central Bank representatives stated that GDP grew by 6.65% in the first semester of 2025, compared to the same period last year. These economic prospects are partially owed to the US Treasury Department greenlighting a resumption of Chevron’s operations in the country. Meanwhile, in the daily reality of public sector workers, teachers, pensioners, etc., there are no major signs of improvement. Staples get more expensive, salaries and pensions remain forgotten, and maintaining households is a permanent struggle. Some official spokespeople repeat that there are no conditions yet to significantly improve conditions for the majority. According to Datanálisis, the sectors of the population with the lowest incomes spend over 60% of what they earn on food.
William Camacaro: Children First: A Campaign to Reunite 66 US-Kidnapped Venezuelan Children with Their Parents Venezuela has reported that at least 66 children have been illegally held in the US since their parents were deported to Venezuela. This situation recalls the case of Cuban Elián González, who, as a child, found himself at the center of a major international incident in late 1999 and early 2000. President Maduro’s administration has been under relentless attack since 2013, having to endure threats of direct military intervention, fanciful accusations of drug trafficking, and a previously unheard-of bounty of $50 million bounty on Maduro. Despite these threats, Caracas has remained steadfast in defending Venezuelan migrants and seeking the return of all the children who are being held in the US against the will of their families. Each day that these children are separated from their families robs them of parental love during their formative years. Accordingly, Caracas persists in demanding that they be reunited with their families, calling demonstrations and orchestrating a broad media campaign across official outlets.
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