Snippets from a National Meltdown

Sucre, Bolivia

One gets the scent of the political differences between Cochabamba and Sucre pretty quick after landing at the airport. Cars all over the city sport flashy green, yellow and red stickers (the national colors) that read ¨R-EVO-catorio¨ and Sucrenos are ready to give you an earful of heated arguments against the Bolivian President as soon as you an express an interest.

¨He doesn’t respect the Constitution.¨

¨We demand that he return the capital to Sucre where it belongs.¨

¨He just does whatever he wants.¨

¨He’s responsible for the deaths of three people here.¨

The racist attacks here of late are not so readily on the lips of those who share their opinions.

Meanwhile, the local headlines come from La Paz where two unfolding dramas seem to be pushing the nation to a seeming meltdown.

The first is the daily deliberations by Bolivian elections officials, both nationally and regionally, over the fate of the countries schedule August 10 elections. Every day the rules seem to change, like a football game in which every quarter the goal line gets moved to somewhere else – to the 20 yard line, the fifty yard line, the hot dog stand. You get the picture.

The latest is that the elections officials now seem to think that the vote should go forward – a relief to know that all that public and private money spent on each side’s propaganda isn’t going to waste – but with a few modifications. Now each of the governors would either be in or out based on winning or losing a regular 50% majority instead of the complicated ´depends-on-what-you-won-with´ formula previously planned. President Morales, however, would still benefit from the old rules, letting him win even if his vote drops just below 50%. It seems to be a formula based on a rule of ¨whatever it takes to assure that everyone stays where they are.¨ How this fits in to legal and constitutional requirements is anyone’s guess. And these are just Thursday’s rules. They will likely change a few times more before the actual vote.

The second drama is national protests and blockades led by Bolivia’s largest labor organization, the COB. The union wants Congress and the President to approve a new national pension law and their ´lobbying activities´ so far have included a series of major road blockades and the takeover of the national communications building in La Paz while armed with dynamite (the photo above comes from the protests in La Paz). The union says that its timing is not politically motivated. And the toothfairy is about to visit me here tonight as well. Those anti-Evo quotes from angry workers, I am sure, were not intended to get the government’s attention

A friend of mine returned home late last night to La Paz after a month away. She told me that the taxi driver carrying her from the airport told her, ¨La Paz is a little complicated right now.¨ That would be complicated in roughly the way other cities are become complicated by earthquakes or tropical storms. Getting to Sucre from Cochabamba by bus right now involves getting off outside the city with your luggage and walking through the blockades to where you can find local transport.

In more than a decade here, have I seen Bolivia this way before? Yes, a handful of times. And the question is, how does all this come to and end in a way short of driving the car of the cliff, Thelma and Louise style. At the moment the not-off-the-cliff scenarios are getting harder and harder to see.

But that’s Friday’s news. By Monday, who knows?

Note: We did an interview here yesterday with Chuqisaca´s newly elected Governor, Savina Cuella, and we´ll have that along with other interviews we are doing with people around the country up here on the Blog early next week.