Evo repents over his pact with the right

The Evo Morales government was forced to negotiate a law of convocation for the Constituent Assembly, ceding privileges to the right wing opposition. One of those was to grant the opposition minorities the possibility of vetoing any initiative from the governing party, making the whole assembly set out the new political constitution of the state on the basis of a two-thirds majority votes. Now the President has repented that decision and is accusing his "neoliberal" enemies of trying to circulate $11 million to buy off MAS constituents.

President Morales declared on Sunday in Caravana that the approval of the new Constitution by two-thirds majority (170 of the 255 votes in the Constituent Assembly) will block the work of the Assembly, the refoundation, and will allow the division of the country.

"Those who say that the new constitution will be decided by two-thirds (PODEMOS) want to bog down the Constituent Assembly, neither the neoliberal enemies nor us have the two-thirds, but we do have a simple majority", commented Morales. MAS swept the last elections, but did not reach two-thirds of the votes.

Denouncements

Morales denounced that, "as the ambassador of Cuba, of Europe and Venezuela know, savage and inhuman capitalism, in order to defend the interests of the transnational companies, have begun to handle sums of money (..) surely to divide the MAS constituents. I have been informed that they have $11 million available to defend this colonial state, this capitalist system and this neoliberal system".

Morales called on the social forces to demand, via the democratic road, the establishment of an originaria Constituent Assembly and not a derived one, like the conservative parties are asking for. "As Quechuas and Aymaras we have historically been kept down, politically oppressed, culturally alienated, socially discriminated and economically exploited, that is why we are a movement that seeks to put an end to the colonial state, that is why we have to be here in Sucre to watch every day what is happening and to inform our organizations, so that they can debate it", recommended the President.

Morales is a follower of an originaria Constituent Assembly with unlimited plenipotentiary powers, that is above the already constituted powers, because otherwise there would no sense in moving ahead with this process of historic change since a partial reform to the constitution can be carried out by the legislative power.

The commander of the Armed Forces, Freddy Bersatti, today notified that the institution which he represents will not allow the transnationals and other political sectors to try and block the Constituent Assembly, as Morales denounced on the weekend. The Defence minister Walker San Miguel reported that the government is working towards obtaining evidence to confirm the accusation made by Morales. He said that the executive is sure that behind this conspiracy is the opposition party of Jorge Quiroga, PODEMOS.

originally published in Spanish on Bolpress.