Luis Arce repealed the decrees aimed at demolishing the “scaffolding …

The President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, reported that the government has repealed seven supreme decrees to demolish “the neoliberal scaffolding” arranged by the de facto president, Jeanine Áñez. From the Ministry of the Economy, they denounced that These decrees “lacked technical and financial support and were intended to benefit big businessmen”, endangering the stability of the country.. A month after his inauguration, Arce is seeking to extricate Bolivia from a deep economic recession by adopting the successful model of former President Evo Morales.

With your views on this goal, the Chamber of Deputies approved the tax on large fortunes. Meanwhile, the government started paying for the so-called “Bond Against Hunger” this month. “No doubts Arce keeps many electoral promises focused on the structural sphere: the economic crisis and the affected Bolivian pocket “, emphasized in dialogue with Page 12 the director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies of Bolivia, Gabriel Villalba. The need for deep reform is looming on the judicial horizon, while the arrival in the country of a mission of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) seeks to lift the veil of repression against protests that left more than 30 dead after the coup.

Towards reconstruction

“We are dismantling the scaffolding of the neoliberal model restarted in November 2019”, said Luis Arce on his Twitter account, reporting on the agreements reached during the Council of Ministers held on Wednesday. With the excuse of the fight against the coronavirus, the transitional government of Jeanine Áñez had approved dozens of decrees during the health emergency.

The seven supreme decrees repealed on Thursday facilitated the signing of contracts with private actors to improve the health system, encouraged support for large companies to comply with their social obligations and set up extensions and facilities for paying taxes. for exporters. Finally, The current government believes that the battery of resolutions did not target the least protected areas of the country: on the contrary, fostered an increase in poverty and unemployment.

The Bolivian president also praised the approval of the VAT refund laws for low-income workers, and the expected tax on the wealthy. “We welcome the fact that the Chamber of Deputies has approved two important bills aimed at reviving the economy,” said Arce, who took over the presidency on November 8 after sweeping the October elections.

In the early hours of Thursday, the deputies gave a half-sanction to the draft Large Fortunes Tax Law. The document states a tribute to great wealth throughout the territory of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, which will be applied to the accumulated fortune of more than 30 million Bolivian pesos of natural persons (just over four million dollars). The bill will now go to the Senate, also with a Masista majority.

“The tax system has the possibility of being more progressive. This means that those who have more must contribute more to the country. In other parts of the world, millionaires are asking tax authorities to increase their taxes because they know that society is a systemic and synergistic problem, ”said the Minister of the Economy, Marcelo Montenegro, after the vote in Congress.

“We will rebuild the economic model which is a model based on the productive activity of the country“Montenegro said during a dialogue with journalists. “The Bolivian economy has been the first to grow in the region. An economic scaffolding that is being rebuilt again from the neoliberal turn that took place in Bolivia for eleven months, ”argued lawyer and political scientist Gabriel Villalba in the same direction.

Of course, to develop this model, which was virtuous on the part of Luis Arce in the Economy portfolio, we must first address the priorities. For that the bolivian government started paying the “Bond Against Hunger” a few days ago. During the campaign, Arce pledged to pay off the Bolivian bond of 1,000 (about $ 144) in order to revive domestic demand. For Villalba, this shows that “the MAS electoral strategy is being realized, which is why the government has a high percentage of approval among the citizens”.

In addition to exposing the economic and social disaster left by the Áñez regime, the change of government brought to light several irregularities in the justice system. An avalanche of legal proceedings initiated by the de facto government against MAS leaders has already been dismissed due to procedural failures. Meanwhile, others causes paralyzed for eleven months, such as those concerning the massacres of Sacaba and Senkata, slowly start to reactivate.

To go to the depths, the Department of Justice led by Ivan Lima convened a group of experts in different areas of law to dealing with judicial reform. Lima said the change in the justice system will come “against all odds and against anyone who opposes it”, albeit “seeking unity”.

Balance and outlook

Bolivian analysts consulted by this newspaper agreed on the progress of the Luis Arce government barely a month after his inauguration. “This month of management is deeply more social than economic in its agenda, because there is first the question of justice reform and secondly the hunger bonus, which has to do with the redistribution of resources, ”said political scientist Marcelo Arequipa, who in turn highlighted a new element of this new process.

“For the first time in the political history of this country, the. One thing is the administration of political power and another is the administration of the political organization, that is, the MAS. In the first function are Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca and in the second is Evo Morales, ”said Arequipa.

For your colleague Gabriel Villalba The results of this month are “positive, but with many challenges”. Villalba called the new cabinet an “emergency” because “its mission is to prepare the ground for the next cabinet which will take office on January 22”.. On this date, the Day of the Plurinational State is celebrated in Bolivia, where the cabinet that will accompany the president for a period of one year is appointed. “Perhaps many of the current ministers will survive and others not, but it will not be a cabinet crisis but rather a historic articulation,” added Villalba.