Luis Arce, Bolivian presidential candidate: «The de facto government uses the coronavirus to justify its mistakes»

The candidate of the Movement for Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce, who opts for the Bolivian presidency, continuos to be the frontrunner and leads the intention to vote in all the polls carried out to date, for the presidential elections that initially were scheduled for May 3, but they were postponed due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

If the elections were today, with more than 33% of the electoral support, Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, the binomial of Evo Morales’ party would be the winners of the 2020 general elections.

During the Morales government, Arce was Minister of Finance and later of Economy and Public Finance. With him, the hydrocarbon nationalization process began and the Productive Community Social Economic Model was implemented, which managed to boost the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and also increase the international reserves.

Thanks to this model, income redistribution policies were applied, which made it possible to improve the lives of Bolivians and finance infrastructure.

In an interview with the journalist Ollie Vargas, for Radio Kawsachun Coca, the MAS candidate stressed that the unfavorable situation that Bolivia is experiencing after the coup d’état is a reflection of the neoliberal measures applied by the de facto government, led by Jeanine Áñez, who is also candidate for the presidential elections.

In his statements, he indicated that Áñez uses the coronavirus outbreak to justify her mistakes and warned about the plans she is preparing, along with her advisers, to privatize natural resources, to the benefit of transnational companies and to the detriment of Bolivians.

Next, the entire interview:

– A victory is predicted for MAS. However, will MAS be allowed to win? Are these elections free, fair and transparent?

First of all I have to say that this campaign is completely different from the others. We have a de facto government and we must move against many things, including the media and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and all its rules; so we are facing a very difficult campaign. In the last poll we are winning by more than 15 percentage points, but we believe that at the end of this battle we will only have one candidacy at the end of this one. Why is that? well everyone talks about it. They said that MAS was dead and would never recover, but in just four months MAS is winning in all the polls and we are sure that we are going to win the elections.

– Can you campaign freely and openly? You have false charges brought against you by the government. Other candidates, like Andrónico Rodríguez, also have charges against him.

Surely it is more difficult for us under this de facto government that is persecuting all of the militants of MAS, the government of President Evo, the people who worked with him, the social movements, the leaders are also accused of many things. So it is very difficult for us to run a free campaign. We face persecution, we face surveillance, there are people who are looking for you, what you are doing, not only you, but also your family. It is a very difficult situation for us, but we face it as best we can.

I guess the concern now will be whether the elections will go ahead. There is a lot of talk about suspending elections, and the de facto government may want to use the coronavirus issue to cancel elections, now that MAS is ahead.

Well one thing is virus and health related issues. But another thing that worries me a lot is the economy, every day the economy is going down. There are no jobs, there is no income, there is no activity in the economy. It is not just because of the virus, it is because they began to replace our model with the neoliberal one, and that is not good for people. Everyone is affected by this model that has been in force since November. They are using this as a pretext to justify everything they were doing wrong since last year. The economic problems that began last year (after the coup) and that are felt now and, on the other hand, that the virus is used as an excuse to avoid discussing economic problems. In a way, it’s a good excuse because everyone is concerned about the virus problem.

-What about the economic impact of the virus? Is the current economic model ready to absorb the economic crisis that arises from the coronavirus?

This model, the neoliberal model, cannot sustain any ‘social bond’, no social policy. They only look for pro-business packages. She does not care about people, we know, that is the neoliberal model. On the other hand, this virus problem is an excuse in Latin America and in Bolivia in particular; it is a pretext, an excuse to cover up the economic and social problems that have arisen since last November. That’s the truth. So people will say that the May 3 elections must take place. I don’t think they want a new date for the elections. I don’t think it’s a good idea. There is a big problem that a democratic government would take into account, instead of this «transitional government» that is not doing a good job. I think the general measures they have taken are not good for the economy and not good for the public health either. They allowed the virus to enter the country and did nothing about it. Now that the virus is in the country, they are taking some steps that don’t help, and people are now exposed. I don’t think they are doing the best job of preventing more infections.

– Jeanine Áñez is relying on Samuel Doria Medina, who was a minister in previous neoliberal governments, to define her economic strategy. What is his economic model? What is his economic vision?

Everything is neoliberalism, he has done nothing but neoliberalism, he does not understand any other model, like our model. He just does not understand . What will happen, if he wins, are just neoliberal, free-market measures, that’s the only thing they can do, according to him.

– What state was Bolivia in when those people left office? What was the economic situation when you assumed in 2005? What kind of economy did they leave behind?

They will return to the privatizations, the corporations that earn a lot of money and leave many poor people behind. That is what happened in the 80s and 90s during the neoliberal era, I don’t think they will change their minds.

– If they continue on the path of privatization of state companies, will Bolivia have the tax base to continue financing social programs and infrastructure costs if profitable state companies are privatized? Where will Bolivia get the money from?

If they privatize during this month, we would have to renationalise, of course.

– So will there be renationalisations?

Of course, if they privatize public companies we will have to renationalise them. If there is no privatization we can guarantee the money for our social programs, because the social programs are not only based on taxes, but also on the income of the public companies that we have had since 2006. We need public companies and also solid income from taxes to guarantee all the social programs we have.

-Are they in the process of privatizing Bolivia’s lithium reserves? If they are privatized, it will surely be incredibly expensive to renationalize them.

Well, we don’t know what they want to do with our lithium, but it is clear that they are negotiating it with some American companies. But, we must guarantee that lithium will be industrialized within Bolivia, with our [state] company here in Bolivia, creating jobs for people and giving us value-added income, and not just exporting lithium as raw material. So we will continue our policy of industrializing all the natural resources we have, of course.

– Some progress has been made in the natural gas industrialization process. Bolivia used to be a net importer of refined gas, what is the situation now?

We now have a urea and ammonia plant that we opened four years ago, it is working, we have to improve it and export more urea, which is a value-added product. And we have many projects in mind to industrialize the natural resources we have. We will continue to apply the same policy that we had before.

– The world is interested in Bolivia’s economic model of the last 14 years because it has managed to generate a remarkable level of economic growth. Is the industrialization of natural resources the objective? Where was the country headed if it weren’t for the coup?

Our bases for the model are: nationalize natural resources, receive benefits from them and redistribute benefits among the people. There are better results with our model, which is based on the nationalization of natural resources. But not only that, we have to industrialize them to receive more income and, therefore, continue the process of redistribution.

– When you were Minister of Economy, you worked with many different countries developing trade agreements. What was your experience with the United States, compared to countries like Russia and China? Did they provide more equitable cooperation?

Well, we don’t believe in free markets, much less in free markets on an international level. We believe in trade agreements that benefit people more than agreements based solely on free markets where price determines everything in the economy. The United States wanted nothing more than free trade agreements. On the contrary, China, Russia and other countries like to make other types of agreements, in trade, investment, tourism. Therefore, it is more convenient for the Bolivian economy to have agreements with this type of countries.

– Now there is an effort to expel this type of Russian and Chinese investments, we have seen the nuclear plant in El Alto discarded. One of the first changes of the new government was to change foreign policy, distancing itself from Latin American allies like Cuba and Venezuela, and turning to countries like the United States and Israel. Will that be reversed?

Of course, I have said it before in many other media, we are going to change all the foreign policy that exists now and return to the policy that we had, which was very useful for Bolivia. So we are going to change everything and that is very clear.

-Will Bolivia contribute to the reconstruction of Latin American integration organizations like Unasur and other forms of Latin American integration entities without the United States?

Of course, we will return to all the treaties and agreements that we had before. Sorry, but they (the de facto government) are doing badly, we need relations with Cuba and China, look at what they are doing in the medical field with the virus at the moment. They have investigations in those fields, so we are more than happy to work with Cuba and China, but this government cannot do it because they have broken these relations.

– There are other forms of cooperation, such as with Israel, that are involved in the persecution (of Bolivian social leaders), working with the police and the army. Is that a cause for concern? Would any of that be discarded?

Without a doubt, as I said, we are going to change all these policies and return to the previous one.

-As a reflection, were there areas where there could have been some form of improvement or things that could have been done to prevent the coup in November?

Is there something? I think it is a very complicated question, because there are many things that we would do to avoid everything that happened. For example, it is very clear that the economy is not enough for people, so we need political education for everyone, because we did not do a good job. We were working alone in the economy, but it is clear that the economy and political thought must go hand in hand.