Lots of good posts out there on Bolivia. Publius Pundit has a brief roundup and Eduardo has the text of Mesa's resignation speech.
I just want to throw in a quick thought about voting preferences. If most Bolivian politicians believe the situation in the country is relatively unstable in the short term, then they may believe that the next president won't last very long. We've seen several politicians say they don't want to be president. If they think the next president won't last, and the presence of their opponent in power strengthens their hand, why not force their opponent to take the presidency?
It seems cynical, but if politicians' short term goals are to mobilize their base, wouldn't Evo Morales benefit from having a pro-Santa Cruz autonomy person in power? And wouldn't those pushing Santa Cruz autonomy or independence benefit if they could rail against a leftist presidency?
There's lots of reasons for this not to occur, including the fear that their opponent will hold onto power through force or that they will do something really stupid that harms the country. But there must be politicians in Bolivia who are sitting there thinking that they'd love to see their worst enemy fail at being president. It'll be interesting to watch if any of that comes up in the vote in Congress.
1 comments:
That's a good observation. I, too, was cynical that somehow the business groups and oil companies were funneling money to sustain the mobilizations (via Cotel?).
What if people said that if Evo became President then X, Y, Z? How different would that be from the social movements saying if Vaca Diez becomes President then they will become violent?
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