Evo the Unpopular

20/04/2011

Alexander the Great; Ivan the Terrible; William the Conqueror; it’s easy enough to pigeonhole historical leaders with flattering and unflattering sobriquets (nicknames if you feel like being less pretentious…or French), but it gets a little harder with modern day heads of state.

To suggest something flattering would sound like a pathetic attempt on the part of the obsequious party faithful; to suggest something unflattering would sound like a pathetic attempt on the part of the opposition.

Nonetheless, here’s a contemporary suggestion: Evo the Unpopular...

Things haven’t been going too well for the Bolivian President lately.

In a country where protests are the norm, and where the President rose to power after leading protests against the nationalization of the country’s resources, setting the record for “expressions of discontent” during his presidency has to be a perverse irony.

But that’s the dubious distinction the Bolivian NGO CERES (the Cochabama Centre for Economic and Social Reality) bestowed on Morales last week with the release of their study on protests in the country over the last 41 years.

The study counted 811 “expressions of discontent” in 2010, which they defined as “strikes, street protests, road closures, and prison rebellions.”

That makes for about 67 a month. And it’s only getting worse—according to the study, anyway.

There have been 240 conflicts registered so far in 2011—up from 207 for the same period in 2010.

But…

There was an agreement reached yesterday between Morales’ MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) government and the COB (the Bolivian Workers Center)—the biggest trade union in the country.

The government is heralding it as a MASSIVE breakthrough.

But is it?

The agreement, which the Communications Minister called the result of massive “efforts and sacrifices”, is little more than a 1% salary increase for teachers and healthcare workers. And though that’s 1% on top of the 10% raise they got in April, it’s still far below the 15% for which the COB was asking.

Ok, let’s be reasonable—a 15% raise? Who asks for a 15% raise?

Well, people living with 11% inflation (18% when it comes to basic foodstuffs).

The poorest and most malnourished population in South America isn’t looking for luxuries; their salaries just aren’t paying them enough to feed themselves.

The proximate cause of this particular inflationary crisis was a government decision in December to end gas and diesel subsidies. The gasolinazo, as it was known, led to price increases of 80%.

Apparently MAS didn’t see the food cost corollary...

But while in February the vice-president confessed to making mistakes and asked for forgiveness, yesterday the Communications Minister was much less conciliatory.

He accused certain leaders of using the protests as a pretext.

They’re using the conflict to “damage and affect the process of change, democracy, and the government,” he said.

Morales went further and said the protests were a precursor to a coup d’état.

Was it just fear mongering?

I thought Morales’ days were numbered last August when the MAS governor in Potosí went on a hunger strike with his fellow Potosians over a lack of investment in the department. But that ignored the context in which the protest was occurring, because with the perspective the CERES study provides, it was nothing more than a blip—a minor disruption amongst hundreds of others.

This time it’s on a national scale, though. And when your people can’t afford to eat, the stakes are a little higher.