In the Battle Over Bolivia's State Gas Company, Evo Opts for Political War

The political battle over charges of corruption and/or incompetence in Bolivia's revamped state energy industry has heated up considerably in the last 24 hours. Opponents of the MAS government have finally found an issue which has given them some political traction and President Morales has opted to respond with ramped up rhetoric and a move toward a political war with his opponents in Congress.

As we have written about earlier here on the Blog, serious charges have been leveled against both Bolivia's Energy Minister and the head of the state-owned gas and oil company (YPFB) that the officials violated the law with their approval of a June contract with a Brazilian energy firm, Iberoamérica Trading SRL.

Yesterday in Bolivia's national Senate the two key opposition parties (which together control a one-seat majority) voted to formally censure Energy Minister Andres Soliz, a move that triggered his resignation, with a combative letter charging that MAS opponents were seeking "to return Bolivia to its condition as a semi-colony for the world's centers of power…"

Soon afterwards Morales weighed in, refusing to accept the resignation, and publicly declaring that backers of the censure in the Senate were, "sellouts of the nation, assassins and perpetrators of massacres." MAS backers believe that the censure move is part of a manipulation by foreign oil companies and their Bolivian allies to thwart the reassertion of government control of the nation's gas and oil resources. Good coverage of these events can be found in today's La Paz daily, La Razon.

On the one hand, I haven't seen the actual government audit upon which these charges are based and everyone, even government officials are entitled to be presumed innocent of wrongdoing until proven guilty of it. However, the original source of these charges, Bolivia's Superintendent of Hydrocarbons, Victor Hugo Sainz, is a credible source and it seems unlikely that the whole scandal is just made from thin air.

As I wrote on this Blog a few days ago, Morales and MAS have a political choice to make. If the evidence really does demonstrate incompetence, corruption, or some mix of the two, Morales needs to decide if political loyalty outweighs his commitment to honest and effective government.

It is easy in politics to get caught up in the warfare of it, especially in the charged environment of Bolivia where a nation is seeking to work out deep historic conflicts in the unfamiliar arena of government – as opposed to the streets. It is easy to follow that voice inside that says, "These bastards are not going to get us, they are not going to win." The problem is that sometimes, even if their own intentions are politics of their own, the so-called "bastards" actually have a point. Pretending that they don't only makes things worse.

There is an old rule of politics, familiar to anyone who has had experience in politics dealing with the media. If you have a bad story on your hands, just get it out all at once. Do NOT make it an ongoing story that just stays on the front pages day in and day out. If I were PODEMOS, UN or some other political opponent of the MAS government, looking at this scenario from a purely political standpoint, I would hope and pray that Evo would do exactly what he is doing – giving political shelter to an ally charged with corruption; defending his actions with rhetoric instead of facts; and keeping the best darn attack they have against MAS alive and well, day in and day out.