The Economist - USA (2020-05-16)

TheEconomistMay 16th 2020 25

1

O

n april 21st, a month into Bolivia’s

lockdown, police in riot gear swarmed

the home of Patricia Arce, the mayor of

Vinto, a city in the department of Cocha-

bamba, and a senate candidate for the left-

wing Movement to Socialism (mas). Her

family, their driver and a friend were cele-

brating her son’s 27th birthday with cake

and chicha, a fermented-corn drink. All

nine were jailed for two nights and charged

with violating quarantine orders. 

Two weeks later, photos surfaced on

Facebook of a birthday party in La Paz, Bo-

livia’s administrative capital, for the

daughter of the country’s interim presi-

dent, Jeanine Áñez, a conservative Catho-

lic. Two guests had hitched a ride from Ta-

rija, a department in the south, on an

air-force jet. Ms Áñez’s critics accused her

of hypocrisy. She had denounced such

abuses of power by Evo Morales, her mas

predecessor, who resigned late last year

after an attempt to rig his re-election led to

protests in which at least 36 people died.

Ms Arce, as it happens, was a casualty of

those protests. On November 6th, a mob of

Mr Morales’s opponents dragged her from

the town hall, cut her hair, doused her in

red paint and paraded her through town.

Ms Áñez’s rule-breaking birthday bash

shows that, now that she is in power, the

former opposition is “doing exactly what

they criticised”, says Ms Arce. 

This tale of two festivities is a sign that

last year’s wounds are still raw. To heal

them, Bolivia was supposed to hold a re-

run of presidential and congressional elec-

tions on May 3rd, free from the fraud that

marred last October’s vote. The pandemic

has postponed them. Ms Áñez has imposed

one of Latin America’s strictest lockdowns,

with harsh punishments for violators, and

resisted setting a date for elections. She ini-

tially promised to leave office when a new-

ly elected president took over. But in Janu-

ary she said that she would be among the

candidates. Foes accuse her of misusing

the pandemic to secure her hold on power.

A fair election would either wrest from

Ms Áñez the power she has amassed or leg-

itimise her hold on it. The country needs

such a vote to avoid a return of violence.

But most people support her handling of

the pandemic and are in no rush to vote. No

one knows when the lockdown limbo will

end. While it lasts, Bolivians will have to be

on guard to ensure that Ms Áñez does not

abuse the trust they have placed in her.

In Bolivia, a strict lockdown is the gov-

ernment’s “only weapon” against covid-19,

says a diplomat. With a population of 11m,

the country has only 430 intensive-care

beds and 190 doctors qualified to treat pa-

tients who occupy them. Mr Morales, who

benefited from a boom in natural-gas rev-

enues during his 14-year presidency, spent

money to reduce maternal and infant mor-

tality. But he did little to strengthen the

health system. Last year, as a pre-election

ploy, he launched free universal health

care. But he failed to budget for clinics,

supplies and the 20,000 professionals

needed to provide it, says Fernando Rome-

ro of Sirmes, the public-health workers’

union in La Paz. Doctors reacted by staging

months of strikes. By May 13th this year, Bo-

livia had conducted just 13,605 tests for the

virus, among the lowest rates in the region.

Under Ms Áñez’s lockdown rules just

Bolivia

In limbo

The country needs an election, but will find it difficult to hold one

The Americas

26 Venezuela’sfa rcicalplot

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