BOLIVIA, FROM TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY TO DICTATORIAL CONTINUITY
In Bolivia, the dictator was ousted but not the dictatorship. The process of the transition towards democracy that started with Evo Morales’ resignation, is inexistent. Interim President Janine Añez’s decision to run as a presidential candidate in elections she was supposed to ensure, has taken her from her role of directing the finding of a solution to be an important part of the problem. Now, instead of a transition to democracy there is dictatorial continuity. Personal ambitions and power feuds have eliminated the national agenda for the transition to democracy earned by the civil resistance movement which ousted the dictator. The squabbling between contenders has displaced ideas and democracy is still missing. Bolivia today has a government comprised by those who were opposition members functional to the dictator and who, while ignoring the historical opportunity, chose to keep the dictatorial system that in this way, only changes hands but not essence. The dictatorship can win the elections’ first round and keep itself in power, functional opposition members are in the government and campaign to retain it, Judges and Prosecutors are the same, the accused and persecuted by the dictatorship continue to be compelled to “prove their innocence” instead of being presumably innocent. Human Rights continue to be violated, there is no Rule of Law, there is no separation and independence of the Branches of Government, there is no guarantee that elections will be fair and clean. Exile is a testimonial to the absence of free political organization and affiliation, and more crisis is on the way.