42 THENEWYORKER,MARCH23, 2020
God,” and of having “other beliefs,” a
comment that echoed an old tweet, since
deleted, in which she denigrated Aymara
religious beliefs as “satanic.”
Áñez assured me that she had never
expected to become President: “It was
something God put in my path.” But,
she added, since she had taken the job
Bolivia had become more stable, and the
necessary political transition was taking
effect. Although “many Bolivians” had
told her they appreciated her efforts, she
had no plans to run in the next elections,
which were planned for May. She saw
herself as “an instrument” in the task of
“pacifying and stabilizing” the country.
Despite Áñez’s talk of peace, there
was a palpable sense that an ideological
purge was under way. Her interior min-
ister, Arturo Murillo, had vowed to “hunt
down” his predecessor, Juan Ramón
Quintana, who had taken refuge in the
Mexican Embassy. (Murillo was known
for harsh talk; as a senator, he had once
said that women had no right to receive
an abortion, though they should feel free
to “kill themselves by throwing them-
selves out of a fifth-floor window.”) If
there was any suspicion that his hunt-
ing metaphor was a figure of speech, he
dispelled it by describing Quintana as
“an animal” that “feeds on the blood of
the people.” Murillo also promised to
pursue Morales for being a “narcoterror-
ist.” Áñez made the same charge, and
told me that Morales would have to face
justice if he ever returned to Bolivia.
W
hen I first spoke to Morales, in
a telephone call two days after
his arrival in Mexico, he insisted that he
was the victim of a conspiracy, in which
oligarchs in Bolivia were abetted by im-
perialists in the U.S. “They don’t forgive
me, because I nationalized the natural
resources,” he said. “They don’t forgive
me, because I reduced extreme poverty.
In the capitalist system, the idea is that
if you’re poor you should look after your-
self, and there won’t be any social prob-
lems. But that doesn’t work in Bolivia.”
As he had done many times before, Mo-
rales accused his enemies of racism, say-
ing that they couldn’t bear the fact that
an “indio” had been President.
Morales likes to say that he did not
just lead the country—he “refounded”
it. Since the days of the Spanish occu-
pation, Bolivia had been effectively two
countries: one indigenous and mostly
rural, the other white and mostly urban.
During Morales’s first term, he pushed
through a new constitution that changed
the country’s name from the Republic
of Bolivia to the Plurinational State
of Bolivia, to reflect its “communal
and social” diversity. He adopted the
indigenous symbol the wiphala—a
checkerboard of bright colors, meant to
represent Bolivia’s many peoples—as a
national emblem, equal to the flag.
At state functions, he wore a collarless
alpaca-wool suit, accented with vivid
Aymara embroidery.
The revamped constitution also
changed Morales’s electoral fortunes. Bo-
livia’s Presidents had been forbidden to
serve consecutive terms, but a new pro-
vision allowed two in a row. In 2013, as
Morales approached the two-term limit,
he convinced the courts that his first
term, which came before the constitu-
tion was amended, shouldn’t count to-
ward his total; the following year, he won
office again. In 2016, he tried yet another
gambit: he held a referendum asking Bo-
livians to override the constitution and
allow him a fourth term. The voters nar-
rowly rejected his request, but the coun-
try’s constitutional court obligingly ruled
that to prohibit Morales from running
would violate his human rights. In 2018,
an even more pliant body, the supreme
electoral court, ratified the verdict.
Many Bolivians were incensed, and
the opposition held protests. But Mo-
rales retained widespread support, es-
pecially among poor and indigenous cit-
izens. Last October 20th, he stood for
reëlection, and felt confident about his
chances. His opponent was Carlos Mesa,
a former journalist who had twice had
his career disrupted by Morales. Mesa
had served as Vice-President from 2002
until 2003, when the sitting President
fled the country, amid violent protests
that stemmed from his privatization of
natural-gas reserves—a conflict known
as the Bolivian Gas War. Mesa became
President, only to resign as well as the
dispute continued. Both times, Morales
was a prominent leader of the opposition.
On Election Day, early results showed
Morales ahead by about seven points,
but he needed a ten-point lead to avoid
a second round of voting. That evening,
with eighty-four per cent of the vote
counted, the electronic tally was sud-denly halted; when it resumed, twenty-
four hours later, Morales had secured a
margin of just over ten per cent. Mesa
and his supporters erupted into accu-
sations of fraud, and they soon con-
vened nationwide strikes to demand
new elections.
Both Morales and his opponents re-
fused to give way, snarling the country
in protests and counter-protests. Finally,
Morales agreed to allow the Organiza-
tion of American States to investigate
the election, and on November 10th the
O.A.S. published its findings. The au-
ditors said bluntly that “serious irregu-
larities” had occurred, mostly in Mo-
rales’s favor, and recommended that a
new election be held. Morales quickly
acknowledged the report and announced
his support for a new vote. But, before
that could happen, Bolivia’s armed-
forces chief, Williams Kaliman, appeared
before television cameras to “suggest”
that Morales resign, “for the good of
Bolivia.” The commander of the na-
tional police echoed his call.
Morales understood that his Presi-
dency had come to an end. Police units
around the country had mutinied, and
Presidential guards had abandoned their
posts. In the hangar that contained the
Presidential jet, Morales held a press
conference, and tendered his resignation
in a frowning, hurried statement. Then
he and a few close aides flew to his rural
stronghold, in the coca-growing region
of Chapare. After he sent word to his
followers to assemble at the airport there,
thousands showed up to protect him
from possible arrest. The next day, Mo-
rales tweeted a photograph of himself
in a safe house. It showed him lying on
a blanket on a concrete floor.
For twenty-four hours, Morales re-
mained out of sight, while Andrés Man-
uel López Obrador, the left-of-center
Mexican President, dispatched a jet to
fly him to safety. Mexico’s foreign min-
ister, Marcelo Ebrard, had made it clear
that his government regarded Morales
as the legitimate President of Bolivia,
who had been toppled in a military coup.
When Morales landed in Mexico, Eb-
rard greeted him in a warm embrace.
Later, he told me that Morales had ex-
pressed fear that if he didn’t flee the
country he would be killed.
In the chaos around Morales’s res-
ignation, the leaders of MAS made a