Pablo Rubio Apiolaza
PhD in Contemporary History (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), specialist in Latin American political history and collaborator of Fundación Alternativas
On June 26, 2024, in the city of La Paz, capital of Bolivia, an event took place that could have altered the institutional stability of this South American country. During that day, soldiers and military vehicles took control of the Plaza Murillo for a few hours, and gained access to the Palacio Quemado itself, the seat of government of the Andean country. The movement was led by General Juan José Zúñiga, who had been dismissed as head of the Bolivian Army for some statements he had made, critical of former President Evo Morales (2006-2019).
In his central speech, General Zúñiga pointed out that “We are listening to the clamor of the people. Because for many years now, an elite has taken over the country. Owners of the State, vandals are in the different structures of the State, destroying the homeland. The Armed Forces intend to restructure democracy”. The military attempt was finally frustrated, and the general was quickly apprehended by the authorities, being also rejected by the government of Luis Arce (2020-). Therefore, it was a limited military movement that did not have a major impact on the trajectory of the government or on the Bolivian institutional regime.
From a historical and political point of view, what was the significance of the coup attempt in the Andean country, and what elements explain the reappearance of the Armed Forces as a political actor? In order to try to answer these questions, it is possible to suggest short and long term factors that allow us to understand the main elements of the recent crisis in the Andean country.
In the short term, it can be pointed out that the struggles within the ruling party led by the leftist Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), have given rise to the presence of strong caudillismo, led by former President Morales and President Arce, the two main referents of the country. In a country lacking a strong and highly fragmented political party system, the institutional and cultural weight of MAS is relevant, since it is the force that has been in government for almost two decades in Bolivia, with only a small parenthesis. And this is because even though for the 2020 elections, Morales “named” his then chancellor Luis Arce as MAS candidate, once in power there was a break between both leaderships. While Morales has had an influential role in the social movements that are part of MAS, Arce has managed to control most of the party’s factions, including the powerful Central Obrera Boliviana (COB). As for the June 26 crisis, there are no solid indications of the participation of both Morales and Arce in the military uprising, however, the disorder and political confusion have contributed to a complex environment.
A second element to understand the crisis is given by the Bolivian economic situation, a country that although it possesses great natural resources (lithium, gas, oil), has been characterized by the fragility of its productive structure and economic management, which has been called the “fuel crisis”. This has produced certain political and social discontent, which was reflected precisely in the military movement of last June. According to a recently published report, “Bolivia’s economic crisis is rooted in a complex combination of hyper-dependence on the dollar, depletion of international reserves, growing debt and failures in the production of products such as gas, which was once an engine of prosperity in the country.” Faced with these accusations, President Arce has responded that “we have certain difficulties in the availability of the dollar, but we are not in a structural economic crisis, as the opposition pretends to position in order to generate political crisis and shorten our mandate.” Countries such as China, Russia, South Korea, France and even India are some of those interested in participating in the exploitation of these resources, of enormous strategic and geopolitical relevance in today’s world.
Finally, it is necessary to recall some structural elements or trends -long-term factors- that contribute to understanding the crisis. Since its emergence as a State in 1825, the country has had a weak experience of democracy and formal institutional mechanisms to resolve conflicts. This has resulted in endemic political instability, the presence of authoritarian attitudes, and a predominant role of the Armed Forces in the political system during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which is also expressed in this period.
On the other hand and in parallel, Bolivia has had for centuries a political tradition based on social mobilizations and recurrent political ruptures, particularly since the Revolution of 1952, passing through military dictatorships, which extended from 1971 to 1982, and then gave way to a democracy complex to implement, with permanent political interruptions, the last of which was manifested in November 2019, with the resignation of President Evo Morales under military pressure and social mobilizations. All this within a country with an ethnic, economic and geographical diversity really difficult to manage, marked by different areas of power and influence such as Santa Cruz de la Sierra -which represents the economic dynamism of the country and a more “western” component-, and the indigenous zone led by La Paz, Oruro and Potosí. In other words, old cultural fractures accumulated over the centuries.
In short, General Zúñiga’s military uprising is a symptom of the current political situation in Bolivia. However, and at the same time, it is also the product of a long accumulation of long-standing historical elements, permanent in the political culture of the country and that force us to rethink the structural pillars of the conformation of its State and society.
