[tptacek]

Arce is the formal head of MAS, which is Morales' party. MAS won a fair election in 2020 after the "coup" in which Jeanine Anez assumed power after Morales fled the country along with the constitutional line of succession after widespread violent protests following an unprecedented 4th term election (which in turn followed his unprecedented 3rd term election, which in turn followed his unprecedented 2nd term election --- prior to Morales, successive terms were forbidden) that was broadly and, if you care what OAS says, officially deemed fraudulent. Anez, an unapologetic right-winger appointed by standard constitutional succession rules, promised elections, delivered them, and conceded power peacefully to her MAS successor, who almost immediately had her arrested and has imprisoned her ever since.

This isn't so much my take as that of the European Parliament and Human Rights Watch.

[thiagoharry]

> if you care what OAS says, officially deemed fraudulent.

I do not care. Later studies contradicted and criticized OAS conclusion. OAS was a player in the 2019 coup:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-d...

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3621475

> Anez, an unapologetic right-winger appointed by standard constitutional succession rules,

What rules? She was not Evo Morales successor. The correct successors were being persecuted and had access denied to the government buildings. And during Anez illegitimate government, she used violence and the police to attack protesters and to persecute the opposition [1]. They tried to postpone the election, but they had no popular support and their coup was unsustainable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senkata_and_Sacaba_massacres

[Aloisius]

> Later studies contradicted and criticized OAS conclusion.

They criticized the statistical analysis which was not actually the main evidence OAS gave. It's just what everyone focused on.

The main evidence was someone replaced the servers used to transcribe/verify tally sheets bypassing auditing and accessed the machines while they were counting and a they found changes in the minutes and the forgeries of poll officials' signatures.

[tptacek]

Eh, there's a lot of criticism of the OAS report, and a lot of it is persuasive. It's hard to argue that Morales should have been allowed in the race in the first place, though.

[tptacek]

Anez was another in a long line of Bolivian heads of state that terribly abused their power. If you're trying to position me to defend the right-wing elite of any country in South America, you're barking up the wrong tree. But Anez assumed the role of interim president after a constitutional crisis, promised prompt elections, and peacefully transferred power back to Morales party, which then immediately had her imprisoned.

[SauciestGNU]

That's a really generous reading of events. My reading was that Anez and her cohort orchestrated a successful coup, but couldn't hold power and were forced to concede and hold elections, in which the party which had been deposed in Anez's coup again won the majority vote

[tptacek]

Again: the only reason Anez, who occupied the same spot in the Bolivian line of succession that Anthony Blinken does in ours, assumed power was that 3 of Morales supporters higher in the order than her resigned. That's an awfully elaborate coup design!

[thiagoharry]

I wonder why they resigned... Just because they were being attacked, their houses burned, with family members being kidnapped, all while they were prevented from entering government buildings....

[tptacek]

Linera left with Morales. The President of the House apparently left to Argentina. but Salvatierra didn't flee? Resigned of her own accord.

And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.

Anez is not good. I don't dispute MAS appears to be the better steward of Bolivia. But Morales had plenty of time to set up a constitutional succession and build a long-term movement (note that Morales and Arce hate each other, and there are rumors that the coup has more to do with that relationship than anything else). Instead, he tried to secure an unprecedented 4th term, after his unprecedented 3rd term, after his unprecedented 2nd term. Is it any wonder that there was chaos in 2019? If Morales had just annointed a successor, MAS would have won in a walk.

[thiagoharry]

All recent coups in Latin America (and several coups outside) follows the exact same script: overthrown the government and say that is temporary and you will organize new elections. During this time, use propaganda, media, repression and sometimes new laws to weaken the overthrowned group so that they will lose the elections. Foreign countries that support the coup can just initially say that they are worried with the "crisis", but then will rapidly recognize the new elected government, avoiding the embarass of openly support an obvious dictatorship.

This same script is being used at least for 20 years now (I remember being used in Equador). But its last part failed in Bolivia.

[tptacek]

That's exactly what didn't happen here!