LA PAZ, Bolivia (AFP) – On Thursday, the President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, accompanied a mass rally of organizations associated with his administration in the current administration’s struggle in the face of recent street protests by anti-government sectors.
This is the second march carried out by the government in recent weeks, this time centered in La Paz, the seat of government. Ars has walked alongside former President Evo Morales (2006-2019) – the president’s mentor – and social sectors, indigenous and mining organizations, among others. The participants chanted, “Arcy, you are not alone!”.
The president wrote on his Twitter account: “This is the unity of the Bolivian people, who today are marching stronger than ever before to say to the coup d’état that democracy is respected!”
“They want to destabilize the government… with strikes and protests,” Public Works Minister Edgar Montaño told Bolivian state television.
Arce faced two recent strikes in the Santa Cruz area, which is the country’s economic engine and a stronghold of the opposition, as protest measures to delay the census. The census, which must be conducted every 10 years and was due to take place in 2022, has been postponed by the Ars government until 2022, due to technical delays. Those pushing for a census this year point out that aspects such as the reallocation of resources and seats in the legislative assembly in the country’s nine regions must be updated.
In La Paz, there is also a conflict over the sale of coca between two leaders that has caused clashes between one of the groups and the police. One of these groups blames the government for this division because, in its opinion, it supports the other leadership, which has opened a second market for the sale of coca leaves.
For analysts, the government has not been able to resolve the disputes and seeks to blame critical movements.
The government and her party point to the opposition for orchestrating a coup against Morales in 2019, while critics say it was a protest against electoral fraud in that year’s presidential election. For this case, former president Jeanine Anez has been in pretrial detention since March of last year.
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