36 The Americas The EconomistNovember 9th 2019
21Santa Cruz. The government has agreed to
let the election go to a second round if the
auditors find fraud.
That does not satisfy the protesters.
They mistrust the oas, whose secretary-
general, Luis Almagro, on a visit to Bolivia
this year affirmed Mr Morales’s right to run
for re-election. Positions are hardening.
On November 2nd Mr Camacho, who has
sought support from the armed forces,
promised “radical measures” if Mr Morales
did not resign within 48 hours. When the
president ignored the ultimatum, Mr Ca-
macho ordered protesters to shut govern-
ment buildings and the country’s borders
to trade, so that Mr Morales “doesn’t have a
single peso to govern”.
The government calls the insurrection
an attempted coup. Encouraged by Mr Mo-
rales, thousands of miners and coca farm-
ers have thronged cities to defend his elec-
tion victory. In Montero, 50km (30 miles)
from Santa Cruz, two protesters were killed
on October 30th when government suppor-
ters tried to dismantle a barricade. At least
one other person died in clashes in Cocha-
bamba on November 6th.
Mr Mesa, a former president, is not a by-
stander but neither is he shaping events.
He is “just interested in being president”,
says Mr Camacho dismissively. The candi-
date resists Mr Camacho’s radical demand
that Mr Morales resign. “It has to be the
popular vote that defines” his exit, says
Gustavo Pedraza, Mr Mesa’s running-mate,
who is from Santa Cruz.
The protesters’ suspicions of electoral
fraud look well founded. Investigators
have found unusually high numbers of in-
valid votes, precincts where turnout was
100% and inexplicable revisions to vote
counts, usually in favour of Mr Morales.
“There are too many irregularities to be hu-
man error,” says Édgar Villegas, a computer
engineer at the Higher University of San
Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital.
This week 30 experts chosen by the oas
arrived. They will review how votes were
tallied and how information was trans-
ferred from polling centres to the electoral
authorities. Even if they determine that
enough fraud occurred to invalidate the re-
sult, it is not clear how a second round
might be held. Many Bolivians will not
trust the electoral tribunal to oversee it.
Several of its members have quit because of
its handling of the vote. A presidential run-
off would not change the makeup of con-
gress, in which the maswon a majority—
fraudulently, the opposition claims. “We’re
tied up like a pretzel,” says a foreign dip-
lomat. “It’s going to be hard to find a consti-
tutional solution that society will accept.”
The standoff threatens to weaken a con-
sensus among social groups that Mr Mo-
rales, Bolivia’s first indigenous-origin
president, had managed to create during
his 14 years in power. In Plan 3000, a work-ing-class neighbourhood of Santa Cruz
named for a project to house 3,000 people
displaced by a flood in 1983, residents com-
plain that the strike is hurting people with-
out savings. “We’re not beggars,” says Marí-
timo Solares, the leader of a youth group
affiliated with the mas. “For us, democracy
is not just voting, it’s being able to put food
on the table for our children.” He fears the
return of racial and regional antagonism.
Effigies of Mr Morales hang from stop-
lights above several barricades. When Mr
Camacho sped past in a caravan of high-
powered pickups, a few riled-up protesters
yelled, “Get rid of the damn Indian!”
The Santa Cruz insurrection superfi-
cially resembles one that took place in
2008, when the largely white and mestizo
elite rebelled against Mr Morales’s leftist
policies and centralisation of power. He
suppressed it by accusing its leaders of se-
dition, jailing some and forcing others into
exile. Other rebellious leaders made peace
with the government.This month’s protests are more danger-
ous for the government. Rather than de-
manding autonomy, protesters are calling
for a restoration of democracy, which reso-
nates across the country, points out Mr Pe-
draza. In contrast to 2008, Mr Morales’s
power is waning rather than waxing. “This
time, he can’t just cut off the heads of lead-
ers,” says Wilfredo Rojo, the cruceño presi-
dent of the national association of export-
ers. “He will have to slaughter citizens.”
On November 4th hundreds of thou-
sands of cruceños filled the city’s centre to
hear Mr Camacho respond to Mr Morales’s
refusal to resign. Beneath a famous statue
of Jesus, he announced that he would go to
La Paz with a Bible in his right hand and a
resignation letter for Mr Morales to sign in
his left. On his first attempt soldiers put
him on a plane back home. He was due to
try again as The Economistwent to press.
Rather than taking down their barricade in
Villa Fraterna, Mr Handal and his neigh-
bours have put up a Christmas tree. 7S
ome 70 peoplegathered under a tent on
a balmy Monday evening recently in
Trench Town, a stone’s throw from the
housing project where Bob Marley grew up.
Outside, three policemen armed with rifles
patrolled in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Trench Town is one of the roughest neigh-
bourhoods of Kingston, Jamaica’s capital.
But the mood in the tent is mellow. The air
smells faintly of ganja. The Trench Towns-
people have gathered not to talk about vio-
lence but about economic policy.
One participant, Sarah, asks Mark Gol-
ding, an opposition mpsitting atop a barstool, how “the man selling bag juice on the
road” is benefiting from reforms mandated
by the imf. Barrington, another local,
wants to know about the effects of raising
sales tax. “When we go buy a pound of flour
we pay tax,” he notes, “but where do our
taxes go?”
The Economic Programme Oversight
Committee (epoc), a motley group of offi-
cials, businessmen and civil-society repre-
sentatives, has held such meetings across
the island during the six years of Jamaica’s
latest imfprogrammes. The fund demand-
ed tough austerity measures: a primary
surplus (ie, before interest payments) of
7.5% of gdp, the highest ever required un-
der an imfprogramme; a three-year wage
freeze for public-sector workers; and new
taxes. On November 10th Jamaica is due to
graduate from its current programme, hav-
ing met its targets. This milestone does not
mean that the country of 3m people, who
have an average income of just $5,000, has
solved its economic problems. Growth re-
mains disappointing, in part because of
the fiscal rigour Jamaica accepted as part of
the imfdeal. But for the first time in de-
cades its finances are stable enough that it
can move beyond crisis management.
Ordinary Jamaicans largely accepted
the sacrifices they had to make to adhere to
the imfagreement. That makes JamaicaKINGSTON
The island’s tumultuous relationship with the IMF has a happy endingJamaica’s economyRedemption song
Sun is shining
JamaicaSource:IMF *ForecastUnemployment
%2010 19*15151050Government debt
% of GDP19*152010150100500