Link to article: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/08/americas/bolivia-luis-arce-inauguration-intl/index.html
Bolivia’s Luis Arce was recently inaugurated as President, ending leader Evo Morales’ chaotic 13-year term. With Arce as President, socialism will return to power in Bolivia. Leaders from all around the region, including Spain, Colombia, and Chile, attended the inauguration ceremony. As a member of Bolivia’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, Arce’s goals include healing the divisions of a political crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
Tensions still remain high in Bolivia. Changes made by the socialist-controlled Congress to lower the majority need to pass new laws and the planned return of Morales from his exile have not contributed to solving the sharp division of the country. Last year, Morales was forced to resign from from office, amid angry protests, and shortly fled the country to Argentina. He’d received backlash for running for an unprecedented fourth term in the face of term limits and a national referendum. While Arce was supposedly handpicked by Morales as the next president, Arce claims that he will have no role in his presidency.
In my opinion, Arce’s plans for the future of Bolivia look promising. He’s vowed to rebuild his country’s battered economy, revive ties with leftwing neighbors, and serve one term only. Arce’s decisive victory goes hand-in-hand with the rest of Latin America; since 2018, the left has returned to power in Mexico and Argentina, and predicted to win Ecuador’s upcoming presidential election.
“We are starting a new phase in our history,” Arce claimed in a recent interview. He’s promised to govern “for all” Bolivia’s people, reclaiming democracy in the country. While Arce’s assertions are hopeful, the humanitarian and economic impact of one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks is predicted to take a toll on his path to success. While the majority of Latin America countries have suffered greatly from the pandemic, Bolivia has been hit unusually hard. A strong, pragmatic president is greatly needed in the county right now.
The question of why former president Morales was essentially forced to flee Bolivia in the midst of an economic and political crisis can be answered by taking a look at the four levels of analysis that we’ve learned in class. On the global level, it seems absurd that a leader would leave his country like that. On the other hand, at the individual level, it makes more sense. Bolivian people became so angry at their leader that they began violent protests, ousting him. Even Bolivian police forces joined in on the protests against Morales. There was nothing Morales could immediately fix the problems the demonstrations were about; the only option he really had was to remove himself from the situation.