A power struggle in the Bolivian left?
Yes, Evo wants to be president again. Arce wants to continue being president. This has been going for like 2 years now. The MAS party is divided between the Arcistas and Evoistas.
Evo is more left wing within the party, democratic socialist and “radical”. Luis Arce is more right-wing within the party, social democrat. They have the same ideals about minorities rights and foreign policy. I don’t think Luis Arce is a Comprador, since he seems to really distrust the US, nationalized the lithium and joined the South American Economic Bloc known as Mercosur. Some people, even in the left, say that Evo has a huge ego and doesn’t trust anyone to be the president, not even people inside his own party.
I do not believe the coup was fake, even some liberal newspapers said that Arce had nothing to gain from this Coup. Besides, the US and Argentina were weirdly quiet when the coup was happening. I think Evo is just repeating Anti-Arce propaganda because he is currently Arce’s main left-wing rival. The General Zuniga had actual plans of establishing a goverment and arresting Arce, Evo and Carlos Mesa (A neoliberal former president and rival of Evo). It was reported that more troops were going to La Paz but stopped on the way because the people and the police arrived in time and General Zuniga fearing his own life, ran away.
I think Evo and Arce will eventually reconcile. They seem to want the same thing for Bolivia. Just like what happened to Lula da Silva and his left-wing rival Marina Silva.
That’s a really nice rundown on this confusing situation. Hope that both of them are coming to reconcile in the face of imminent reactionary threats instead of doing petty infighting.
The power struggle has been going on for a while, it started a bit after the start of the presidency of Arce, during the 2021 regional elections none of the candidates endorse by Evo were not chosen by MAS and there have been some push back inside the party against Evo for supporting candidates, and its been like that for a while with the Pro-evo faction and the Pro-Acre faction fighting, there was an escalation last year with the leadership of MAS formed a congress and kick out Acre from the party and a few allies plus announcing Evo as the candidate for presidency next year however the Acre faction doesnt recognize the congress that kickout Acre so tecnically MAS is currently split in 2 factions that dont recognize the other as legitimate
