The left, the right and MAS

Grover Cardozo

Self-proclaimed conservative analysts are gaining confident in their analyses, affirming that MAS has abandoned its radical positions and has moved closer to the right. They have begun to make these statements following the agreement in Congress between MAS and Podemos, which facilitated the extension of the period of sessions of the constituent assembly.

The interpretations are diverse, and both very repetitive and interesting: a dispatch from the news agency EFE for example, says that President Morales is shifting to the centre and is moving away from his radical postures - left wing and indigenist – as he has been forced to seek results and not lose the support of the middle class.

Ex-minister Felix Patzi commented in an interview that within MAS there exists two positions: “One that is very left wing, based on the manuals of the ex USSR and another which is indigenist, with a decolonialist ideology, in search of justice for the discriminated originario peoples”.

Carlos Cordero, a political analyst who rarely appears in the media said that “there exists a distancing by MAS from the radical left and which is producing concessions that are being given to the right”.

Neither the first, nor the second interpretation, truly express reality, due to their simplicity. MAS is neither guided by a nostalgia for the old USSR, nor can it be baptizes as an indigenous left.

A categorization is not possible because MAS is that and many more currents and political tendencies at the same time. Various sociologist hold that MAS is today the most unique social and political formation that history has given birth to, due to its social composition, because of the types of ideas and social philosophy that come together inside it. Within its ranks are indigenous people, mestizos and also whites, who come together, not because of their skin colour, but because of the type of political, social and moral commitment that have made, faced with the history of this country.

The old categories of radical left, moderate left, or centre, result insufficient in determining what are the politico-ideological coordinates where MAS can be locate. MAS is the result of the new concept of social movements that are being generated in the world, in favor of freedom and well being.

In any cases, in the function of the experiences that history has produced - going beyond conceptual cliques - what interest us today are the results that this movement, which today is government, produces. Beyond the form and esthetics, what matters are its policies and ethics, which is to say, the solutions that can arise in order to push forward with the advance of Bolivian society.

Translated from ABI