Pulseo between the Bolivian government and the coup plotters in a crucial week

Written by Jorge Peténaud Martinez

Chief Correspondent in Bolivia

While the Technical Committee for the Population and Housing Census is on the right track according to official sources, the heroes of the coup that forced former President Evo Morales to resign three years ago announced further pressure measures.

“We work in a cordial atmosphere with a fruitful technical exchange. Sometimes the discussion is heated, but the general atmosphere is pleasant, with a wide willingness for dialogue,” emphasized the Deputy Minister of Planning, David Guachala.

He reported that after the inauguration of the working group on November 5 with the task of scheduling the census exercise, in 10 working hours, 350 out of the more than 700 activities listed in the schedule of the previous stages prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

Guachala has accused Gabriel Rene Moreno’s Autonomous University President, Vicente Cuellar, of looking for an excuse to leave the technical committee.

He based his guess on the behavior of Cuellar, who said after a two-hour break that he was leaving the meeting because he had not had documentation supporting the work done by the INE.

An hour later, he returned to the facilities of the Beni José Balivian Autonomous University, where the commission is meeting, to deliver a letter addressed to the Minister of Development Planning, Sergio Kosikanki.

In it, he requested “a simple copy of the detailed proposal and the complete documented schedule, prepared by the National Statistics Institute for the conduct of the Population and Housing Census,” as well as information regarding the envisaged budget for the implementation of each of the activities.

Referring to the issue, presidential spokesman, Jorge Richter, warned that they “are there to manipulate, obfuscate and politicize, looking at the statements they make all the time, like the president of the university (Vicente Cuellar), like Mr.. (José Luis) Santisteban, approved”.

These people use these spaces to speak politically, the spokesman added in statements to the Bolivia Public Television Channel.

During a recent public intervention, the Governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, addressed “Dr. Cuellar” and warned him that anyone who surrendered in connection with the 2023 census and the indefinite strike of Santa Cruz “will kill a civilian in Santa Cruz. He is considered a “vendor” to the government.

According to Richter, the Santa Cruz Inter-Institutional Commission delegation is seeking to “cause a delay in the commission’s work”, in order to prevent “a consensus on a deadline” for the national survey.

In his opinion, the aim of these actions is to “further aggravate the conflict in the following days” to achieve the main goal of “undermining the constitutional order”, as happened in November 2019.

Paraphrasing the coup

At the same time, in support of the strike, on November 5, five representatives of the civil committees from La Paz, Tarija, Pando, Oruro and Beni arrived in the city of Santa Cruz and met the head of this unelected structure from Santa Cruz. , Romulo Calvo.

In the end, Calvo announced in a press conference that all these actors of the November 2019 coup d’etat would be promoting a national strike starting on November 7.

Other actors in that coup spoke along the same lines, such as the National Committee for the Defense of Democracy, the coca growers of Yungas, and spokesmen for the National Medical College and the International Heavy Transport Chamber.

For their part, lawmakers from opposition parties, Believe and the Citizen Society threatened to prevent President Louis Ars from addressing the Plurinational Legislature marking the second anniversary of his arrival on November 8, with more than 55 percent of the vote to the presidency.

Regarding the coup plans, the presidential spokesperson noted that following the alleged demand for “the census process, there is an interest in undermining the constitutional order” because those sectors “feel swayed by the legitimacy of the Plurinational State” and want to restore it. The old republic.

But Richter warned that “those who seek to undermine the constitutional order should know that behavior that goes beyond the law always has consequences.”

He emphasized that the government would not allow the reissue of the November 2019 coup because there was a “set of rules” that would be applied.

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