With little renovation and a few surprises, Bolivia …

After going through one of the darkest stages in its history, Bolivia is heading towards its second consecutive election in a few months. Between the lack of renewal of the generations and a few striking ruptures, the parties and political groups have registered their candidates for the regional elections to be held on March 7.

Internal struggles for the candidacies of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) have been a constant in recent weeks. Former Senate President Eva Copa has broken with the ruling party go find the mayor of the city of El Alto, neighbor of La Paz and bastion of Evo Morales. Despite some short circuits, The MAS remains the only political organization represented in all the municipalities of the country. The party’s most resounding candidacies are those of Former Senator Adriana Salvatierra and the former director of the state-owned company Mi Teleférico, César Dockweiler, who will run for the municipalities of Santa Cruz and La Paz respectively.

For its part, the opposition again arrives fragmented in the elections and has barely forged a few local alliances in order to wrest territory from the ruling party. One of the most striking cases is that of former de facto president, Jeanine Áñez, who will be a candidate for the post of governor of the Amazon department of Beni, his homeland.ez-i-resign-from-the-Democrats-cans “> Áñez has surprisingly left the Democratic Party, who had strongly supported his transitional government. The other opposition candidates who stand out are the former rector of the University of La Paz, Waldo Albarracín, and Santa Cruz leader Luis Fernando Camacho. Both were the protagonists of the coup against Morales.

Analysts consulted by Page 12 They agree on the lack of replacement expressed in the candidacies. “There is no doubt that these elections will not be the domain of the renewal expected on the political fronts”, assured the director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies of Bolivia, Gabriel Villalba. However, it should be noted the “democratization” of spaces for debate. “The confrontation with the Bolivian left has developed much more, even with its many contradictions “, he warned Villalba.

The analyst Marcelo Arequipa believes that anti-mass organizations are currently concentrating their activity in the most important cities of the country. “The MAS is the only party to have a national structureThe other political organizations do not necessarily have a structure, but do not intend to expand territorially, they are confined to these spaces where they believe themselves to be stronger ”, he pointed out.

The ruling party has entrusted its leadership to Evo Morales, who after his return to Bolivia had his first big challenge in the nomination of candidates. The process did not go without incidents like that in the town of Lauka Ñ which was interrupted by a chair flying in the air. MAS and Morales were inclined to offer Zacarias Maquera in the office of the mayor of El Alto, which provoked the dismissal of Eva Copa, a historical masseuse leader who ended up closing ranks with the Jallalla La Paz group. For Villalba, The Copa could have been built as a figure “to fight for the presidency or the vice-presidency in five years, but he killed his historic chance and that will make him foot a bill in the future”.

If the right is relatively united in Santa Cruz, it is not the same in the rest of the country where several opposition candidates compete. In La Paz, for example, 17 fronts are fighting to become the best option against MAS. “Not much can be said about the range of anti-Masist parties that participate and which ultimately all have party owners or leaders who elect and invite their candidates, as most of them they do not have membership, ”sociologist Juan Carlos Pinto said in the dialogue. with this log.

Former provisional president Jeanine Áñez has been registered as a candidate for governor by the department of Beni. Previously Withoutthis had publicized his resignation from the Democrats with strong criticism from local leaders. The former senator joined the Now alliance, promoted by Unidad Nacional, a group led by businessman Samuel Doria Medina. It should be remembered that Beni was one of the most punished by the coronavirus pandemic during his interim management.

This was not the only divide within the Democrats, one of the main spaces of the Bolivian opposition. The governor of Santa Cruz, Rubén Costas, broke a spear of civic leader Luis Fernando Camacho, who will seek to succeed him in office. Meanwhile, the Community Citizen group, led by former President Carlos Mesa, has chosen to re-articulate itself to the right in the Pando department in the hands of former Democratic Unity Senator Carmen Eva Gonzales. In April 2019, Gonzales called for the intervention of the United States to overthrow the government of then-President Evo Morales.

On March 7, more than seven million Bolivians will go to the polls to elect nine governors, 339 mayors and their respective members of the departmental assembly and councilors. With good prospects and beyond some internal disputes, the MAS will seek to consolidate its leadership at the national level.