Bolivia remains polarized two years after the resignation of Evo Morales

Bolivians recalled on the eve (Wednesday) the two years of the resignation of Evo Morales to the Presidency of the country after almost 14 years in power in the midst of a crisis unleashed after the failed elections of 2019, with a persistent polarization since then.

On November 10, 2019, Morales announced that he was resigning from the Presidency in a video broadcast by the state channel, after the cascading resignation of several high authorities and pro-government parliamentarians.

The resignation took place in a context of protests that spread in the previous weeks over allegations of an alleged fraud in his favor in the 2019 elections, later canceled.

On the same day, the Organization of American States (OAS) he had recommended repeating the first round of those elections with new electoral authorities, which Morales agreed to do, but that did not stop the protests.

For this reason, he later reported on his resignation, assuring that he was doing so to pacify the country and said he was the victim of a “civic, political and police coup”, alluding to the police withdrawal in the previous days.

After his resignation, Bolivia experienced moments of chaos that same night and the following day, with attacks on police headquarters and private homes, in addition to the burning of most of La Paz’s urban bus fleet and groups of civilians in the streets. to the cry of “civil war” in the neighboring city of El Alto.

For two days, no one took over the Bolivian Presidency, since with Morales, all those who could constitutionally succeed him resigned, until the then second vice president of the Senate, the opposition Jeanine Áñez, assumed on an interim basis after activating a succession mechanism that in his moment had the approval of the Constitutional Court.

Now the polarization continues in the country, with an officialism that insists that in 2019 there was a “coup” against Morales and the opposition who defend that the crisis was a consequence of electoral fraud.

Postures

Last February, Morales insisted that in 2019 “there was no fraud” and that “the best proof” of this are the results of the 2020 election, in which his former Minister of Economy Luis Arce won with more than 55% of the votes.

Morales reiterated this argument in a recent interview he had in Argentina with the Uruguayan Victor Hugo Morales, who asked the former president: “Who have credibly apologized for what they did to you and Bolivia?” in 2019, to which the Bolivian replied: “Sorry, nobody, that I know of nobody.”

This statement earned him criticism from his detractors, including the former interim president Áñez, imprisoned since March for the alleged “coup”, and the governor of the Santa Cruz region, Luis Fernando Camacho.

“On 11.10.19 @evoespueblo and masistas resigned and left the Presidency and Vice of Bolivia, Presi and 1st Vice of the Senate and Deputies, after fraud confirmed by the OAS. They promoted chaos and violence among Bolivians. They fled to evade Justice. Bolivia has not yet received their apologies, ”read Áñez’s social networks run by his family.

Camacho accused Morales on Twitter of “dividing” the country and ignoring the results of the constitutional referendum that in 2016 denied him the possibility of running for president again.

“Corruption was the mark of your governments. You did not know the Constitution and before your third fraudulent reelection, the people rose up and you fled like a coward. Wait, Morales, I apologize to you, NOBODY is going to ask you, “he said.