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[EFFORT POST] Counter CIA Propaganda - A guide to the situation in Bolivia I put this together to counter the arguments I've been seeing most commonly with regard to the coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia. ###Claim 1: Evo packed the court full of loyalists so that he could become president for life In 2016, a referendum was held to establish whether Evo Morales would be able to run for re-election. He narrowly lost this referendum. Evo Morales agreed to abide by the results of the 2016 referendum preventing his candidacy for reelection until the Supreme Court reversed the decision. https://www.lostiempos.com/actualidad/pais/20171129/tribunal-constitucional-avala-reeleccion-indefinida-evo-morales Many western outlets have claimed that Evo Morales packed the court in order to hold onto power. However, this claim is questionable. The 2009 Bolivian constitution, approved by referendum, specifies the process by which a person is put on the Supreme Court. You can read the full constitution here: https://web.archive.org/web/20090521023641/http://www.presidencia.gob.bo/download/constitucion.pdf The process is as follows: Candidates for the constitutional court are preselected by the Legislative Assembly. There is one judge corresponding with each of the nine departments (states) in Bolivia. Each state votes for their judge and the winner of the popular vote is placed on the court. It is absolutely dishonest to act like the Bolivian selection process is any less democratic than the one that exists in the vast majority of the world. In America, Supreme Court judges are selected by one person (the President, who doesn't even need to have ever won a popular vote nationwide) and approved without any input from the citizenry by the Senate (the chamber of Congress that least reflects popular will, as it is population-independent). Evo has been in power since 2006. While that's a decent amount of time, let's not forget that Angela Merkel has been the head of the executive branch of Germany since 2005, and no one is questioning her mandate. ###Claim 2: The 2019 election was full of irregularities or rigged This narrative has been perpetuated by the OAS and opposition groups in Bolivia without evidence. The first claim of election irregularities was published in a press release by the OAS (https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-085/19). Their claim: > The OAS Mission expresses its deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results revealed after the closing of the polls. > At 19:40 on Sunday, October 20, the TSE disseminated the results of the TREP. These figures clearly indicated a second round, a trend that coincided with the only authorized quick count and the statistical exercise of the Mission. Our information was shared today with the TSE and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. > At 20:10, the TSE stopped disclosing preliminary results, by decision of the plenary, with more than 80% of the votes counted. 24 hours later, the TSE presented data with an inexplicable change in trend that drastically modifies the fate of the election and generates a loss of confidence in the electoral process. To understand this situation, one must first understand Bolivia's election system. This statistical analysis, conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington DC, provides a good overview of the election system: http://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-elections-2019-11.pdf?v=2 > There are potentially two rounds in Bolivia’s presidential elections. A candidate receiving either more than 50 percent of the vote, or at least 40 percent with a 10 percentage point lead over the runner-up in the first round, is declared the winner. If no candidate meets either of these requirements, the two candidates with the most votes must face each other in a runoff election. > ... > The TSE has two vote-counting systems. The first is a quick count known as the Transmisión de Resultados Electorales Preliminares (TREP, hereafter referred to as the quick count). This is a system that Bolivia and several other Latin American countries have implemented following OAS recommendations. It was implemented for the 2019 election by a private company in conjunction with the Servicio de Registro Cívico (SERECÍ), the civil registry service, and is designed to deliver a swift — but incomplete and not definitive — result on the night of the elections to give the media an indication of the voting tendency and to inform the public. The TSE is unlikely to process 100 percent of the results in the quick count in nationwide votes due to logistical limitations and the amount processed can vary widely by geography and the type of ballot. For example, in the 2016 nationwide constitutional referendum, it processed 81.2 percent of the results before it held a press conference at about 6:15 p.m. on election night. The 2016 autonomous referendum results were released for each jurisdiction with between 66.7 and 100 percent of the results processed at 7:30 p.m. on election night. In the 2017 judicial elections, an Electoral Experts Mission of the OAS praised the performance of the quick count system for releasing the results at 80 percent at around 9:30 PM. > The second vote-counting system is the official count (or cómputo), which is legally binding under Bolivian law. The official count is more thorough and precise and takes longer. It is the only valid vote tallying system, and the TSE uses it to determine and announce the final election results. > Once voting has concluded, individual ballots are counted in voting stations and aggregated into actas, or tally sheets. For the nonbinding quick count, the results from the tally sheets are sent to SERECÍ verification operators via a mobile app, along with photos of the sheets themselves. The tally sheets are then physically sent to a Departmental Electoral Tribunal (TED), where the information is verified and entered into the official count. This same report also points out that the jump in votes noted by the OAS was not only statistically possible, but likely. The halt in TREP transmissions occurred because it took additional time for rural votes to arrive. Either way, no such irregularity occurred in the official count. In addition, an analysis of polls in Bolivia ahead of the election seem to show similar results. Polls of eligible voters showed Evo receiving between 42.8 and 51.9 percent of votes against Mesa’s 25.6 to 34.3 percent: https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-bolivias-2019-presidential-race The official election results, if anything, show a slight boost for Mesa, with Morales receiving 47.08% and Mesa receiving 36.51% of the vote. These results are not too different from the polling ahead of the election. However, on Sunday, the OAS released their audit of the elections and recommended a new election. I took the time to read this audit and determine what their complaints were. You can find that audit’s text here (Spanish): http://www.oas.org/documents/spa/press/Informe-Auditoria-Bolivia-2019.pdf Their complaints, summarized: > Criticized the security and procedure of the computer systems for both the quick and the official count, including complaints about how it was tested, server configuration, and software access controls. > The redirection of transmissions from certain machines in the quick count TREP to an unrecognized external server. > An analysis of several reported irregularities found 23% of them to be credible. > The OAS acknowledged the difficulty of verifying results in the municipalities of Chuquisaca, Beni, Pando, Potosí and Santa Cruz due to destruction of ballots and election equipment [NOTE: this post-election destruction of election material occurred during protests organized by Morales’ opposition by anti-government demonstrators https://www.thenation.com/article/bolivia-elections-morales/ ] > The procedural security of the elections in several precincts was found to be lacking (rules not being followed by local election officials) As a result, the OAS concluded: > The audit team cannot validate the results of the present election, and recommends another electoral process. The future process must count with new electoral authorities to be able to carry out trustworthy elections. ###Claim 3: This is not a coup, but a restoration of democracy As the results of this audit were released, Evo Morales immediately agreed to a new election with a new electoral commission. Despite this, opposition leaders Carlos Mesa and Luis Fernando Camacho demanded Evo’s resignation and the barring of his participation in the new election. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/10/evo-morales-concedes-to-new-elections-after-serious-irregularities-found This is an ... interesting demand, since the OAS audit found no evidence of manipulation by the Morales government or his electoral board, they merely found flaws that could have been manipulated and their recommendation was that the government investigate these flaws and determine responsibility. Demanding a resignation by the President seems like a pretty hardline stance in this scenario. Hours after this announcement, several generals held a press conference where they asked Morales to resign as president. Evo gave in to their demands shortly thereafter, agreeing to resign as president in order to “assure the social peace”. https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/11/10/actualidad/1573386514_263233.html Police and military officials began arresting Supreme Court officials, Election Tribunal officials, and politicians from the MAS party after Evo resigned. https://www.notimerica.com/politica/noticia-bolivia-detenidos-25-miembros-tribunales-electorales-irregularidades-comicios-presidenciales-20191111172213.html A civil breakdown ensued, with supporters of both parties attacking homes and government buildings. Evo Morales’ own home was broken into and ransacked. The Venezuelan embassy in Bolivia was also sacked. https://www.clarin.com/mundo/atacaron-casa-evo-morales-cochabamba-saqueos-varias-ciudades-bolivia_0_6zbi-rOV.html Opposition leaders entered the government palace later on Sunday, including Luis Fernando Camacho. The Wiphala (indigenous flag which became the secondary flag of Bolivia) was torn down. One of the entrants (a pastor) placed a bible on the Bolivian flag and said “The bible has returned to the palace. The Pachamama will never return.” The Pachamama is an important goddess of the indigenous people of Bolivia. https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/mundo/2019/11/11/nunca-mas-volvera-la-pachamama-al-palacio-de-gobierno-en-bolivia-3923.html Camacho himself is a former member of the Santa Cruz Youth Union, which, according to Max Blumenthal, is an explicitly right wing nationalist organization that has been involved in anti-Morales and anti-indigenous violence. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/ The military and police have already stated they will begin operations to restore order in the city of El Alto. El Alto has historically been a site of indigenous protest and is an area that supports Evo Morales. https://www.france24.com/es/20191112-bolivia-choques-policia-evo-mortales Almost every politician in the immediate line of succession stepped down or was arrested following Morales’ removal. This includes Alvaro Garcia, the former Vice President, and the President of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra (both MAS members). Jeanine Añez, the opposition leader in the Senate, has claimed the role of acting president. In other words, the leader of the minority party in the upper house has taken control of the executive branch despite the fact that Morales’ mandate from the 2014 election should have kept him in office until January of next year, when the next president would otherwise be inaugurated. https://www.elpais.com.uy/mundo/renuncia-evo-morales-quedara-cargo-bolivia.html Morales has sought asylum in Mexico, and arrived there today. Jeanine Añez has said her transitional government’s only goal is to bring about new elections, but a date has not been given. The two houses of Congress still need to confirm her presidency. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50383608 **As far as a coup goes, it doesn’t really matter whether the OAS audit is accurate in their assessment of election fraud.** Evo Morales immediately agreed to carry out their request and only resigned after the military asked him to. This is definitionally a coup d’etat, and it’s highly unusual that it is not being reported on as such, especially since there is currently no acting president but the military has already begun enforcement actions unilaterally in El Alto. ###Bonus: This is obviously a US-backed operation, right? Basic historical analysis leads one to suspect US involvement in some way or another, but it is important to be able to back these claims up with evidence. Recently, a series of leaked audio recordings seems to have provided the first pieces of clear evidence of outside involvement in Bolivia. 16 audio recordings suggest that figures from the American, Colombian, and Brazilian government have spoken to and supported Bolivian opposition leaders in their goal of removing Morales from power. US senators Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez, and Ted Cruz are all mentioned by name. The plans described in the leaked audio recordings include the burning down of houses of politicians and attacking the Cuban embassy. https://elperiodicocr.com/bolivia-filtran-audios-de-lideres-opositores-llamando-a-un-golpe-de-estado-contra-evo-morales/ Marco Rubio had previously tweeted expressing concern over the Bolivian election shortly after the election, before the OAS issued its statement of concern over the election. Rubio wrote his tweet at 10:12 AM while the OAS report was published around 9 PM. https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1186284033178767361?lang=en https://twitter.com/OAS_official/status/1186456799089692673 Donald Trump has applauded the Bolivian military for removing Evo Morales, calling his resignation a “victory for democracy.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-regarding-resignation-bolivian-president-evo-morales/ The Grayzone reported on links between Bolivian opposition members and US intelligence regime change operatives. The founder of Rios de Pie, an allegedly environmental organization, has a number of circumstantial links to CANVAS, a CIA-linked group that has been involved in multiple regime change operations. Not hard evidence of anything, but suspicious. https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/29/western-regime-change-operatives-launch-campaign-to-blame-bolivias-evo-morales-for-the-amazon-fires/ Edit: Yuri Calderón (the general who demanded Morales’ resignation) worked as a military attaché in DC in 2013, and with APALA (Aggregated Police of Latin America) which is based in DC. https://twitter.com/jebsprague/status/1193986589749211136?s=21 I cannot say with absolute certainty that the US was involved in this coup but the historical considerations and circumstantial evidence match a pattern of previous US-backed regime change operations to a significant degree. ###Regardless of your opinion on Evo Morales and whether the election is questionable, there are very good reasons to be worried about the situation in Bolivia, especially for the indigenous populations who have historically faced racist violence and oppression. We have already seen destructive acts against indigenous symbols and the links between the coup-plotters and far-right groups are significant.