The Latin America thread (VE, BR, AR, CU, MX...)

I would argue that term limits are generally justified in presidential systems, not just in countries with still fragile democratic systems. Then again, I would also argue that parliamentary systems (with proportional representation) are generally better suited for such countries in the first place, but this is another topic.

And with all due respect, it is really no surprise that Morales attempts to secure another term against the constitution raised a lot of red flags. If Morales was really all what his supporters see in him, then he should have raised a successor to continue his work. That would have secured an impressive legacy.

It's not slippery slope scaremonging when we're talking about the Chavista biggest foreign ally. Did we use this amount of "Let's be nuanced" with Right Wingers? Everyone talked about how Venezuela wasn't Cuba, well...laughts on them and the people who ranted about that were validated.

Like, imagine Trump running for a fourth term when he is openly praising Putim at the same time.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 2nd 2020 at 10:47:28 AM

I certainly agree that cultivating a succession and retiring to raise llamas (or whatever) would have been wiser than continuously pushing for his own premiership. Doesn't justify the coup one bit.

The evidence from the Monkey Cage (specifically MIT's electoral monitoring department) is that Morales successfully made his case in a reasonably fair election that overturning an advisory referendum was not that big a deal, and voters decided he should stay in his post. The stance of a couple of posters in this thread appears to be that the Bolivian public don't get to decide that, and a paramilitary coup by murderous far-right racists with a tiny vote-share is the superior option.

Let's be honest here, this has never been about democracy.

Germany doesn't have term limits, but you don't see anyone calling for term limits there. hell, the US has less of claim as a democracy since it's delegate system is very undemocratic

The "Coup" was literally just Evo running.away when.he realized nobody on the army would allow him to be President for Life, put yourself in the POV of the military then. The president has being caught commiting fraud (and before you keep showing all those "Alternative" researches, their methodology is hilariously bad such as "Evo couldn't have altered the vote because it wasn't impossible. Nevermind the question is about a 0,5 percent of the votes), There are massive protests over the country and the President ordered you to go and stop them.

The only reasonable answer is to tell the President to left and stay in the barracks, which they did. The president right now is Añez, the highest ranking person that didn't ran away and not Kalliman

Germany is a parlamentary system, rules.are different there. Bolivia had their own rules that Evo proceeded to ignore.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 2nd 2020 at 10:49:12 AM

You're nuts if you think I'd justify that the US ARMY stage a coup to depose Trump in such an instance. The military just deciding to overturn the results of democratic elections is a far greater threat to democracy than a President implementing unlimited term limits.

And what would the military have failed to protect Morales from? Could it possibly have been the literal fascist paramilitary groups who were kidnapping senior MAS politicians' families? Your definition of 'not a coup' is fascinating, Kazuya.

@ Zarastro

I'm not really sure to be honest, I would argue that Parliamentary systems work best when you have a high standard of education in your population and decent quality politicians, not exactly what we have to work with, but I'm willing to take a look at how it works to verify that idea.

@ Kaos

So him doing basically whatever he wanted despite what the law said is the best case scenario here?

@ Iaculus

...seriously?

I have to say, that's the lowest pin of bad faith you have done on us from what I can remember. I wonder if you think we are Black Shirts just because we are not willing to tolerate Evo's powergrab moves or any of the left's idiocy here.

Also, nice way of dismissing the entire middle class legitimate grievances with Evo (unless you are going to say that should have stayed silent, which is another low you are going to reach).

Edited by raziel365 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 7:57:00 AM

Morales did what he did through legal and democratic channels as far as I know. So, yes. That is preferable to a military fucking coup, as you serious here?

Uh huh. Which is why those middle-class concerns manifested in a national election where Anez got a large plurality of the vote and won in the first round, only for a minor MAS official to work with Stalinist paramilitaries to threaten her government into resignation or exile, gun down protesters, and appoint themselves as president with no obvious constitutional backing.

Oh, wait, no. That's the opposite of what happened.

You're calling winning an election a power-grab and a fascist coup a necessary mechanism to restore democracy. Why should anyone pretend you're posting in good faith?

I don't know, this whole farce about the term limits sounds very fishy to me. Those limitations are intented as democratic safeguards and should not be discared for the personal ambitions of a politicians. I would also argue that forcing the change through despite a majority voting against it does not imply that Morales has much respect for democracy.

Not to mention that the legal justification for it sounds very far-fetched to me. I sincerely dont know how the Supreme Court in Bolivia is comprised, but is it possible that, given the length of his government, it is comprised of Maduro supporters?

Edited by Zarastro on Mar 2nd 2020 at 5:24:00 PM

The Plurinational Constitutional Court members (which is what decided Morales could run again) were directly elected by the people in a national election - it's basically as democratic as you can get. So, they may well be Maduro-sympathetic if the public were Maduro sympathetic at that time, but it's not an US Supreme Court system where the President can literally stack the Court with his own appointees.

Is really naive to said evo didnt have a hand in that, some legislator actually quit and said it was presure from evo and MAS to allow him run again.

And all this talk about whatever term limit are good or no? it dosent matter, because this wast make in good faith, it was make soon after the public told NO to evo because after three terms people may getting nervious about him wanting to be for life,is a blatant "this one didnt count!", specially when they cite his human right to run again(evo always riles against human right institutions).

"Also, comparing a dude who literally offered to have another election over the election he legally won outright to Castro and Maduro, two actual authoritarians, is really questionable."

Considering evo have being castro and maduro biggest and loudest suporter is not a huge strech, specially since chavismo abolish term limits saying "if someone is doing go, why kicking out?" what result is another way for chavismo to stick on power.

"The stance of a couple of posters in this thread appears to be that the Bolivian public don't get to decide that, and a paramilitary coup by murderous far-right racists with a tiny vote-share is the superior option."

No, they decide and told him no, they overeturn by using faulty logic and aparently that is okey because it seen, left winger president cant be fault of bad intention, only of no being cleaver enough, aparently.

"Germany doesn't have term limits, but you don't see anyone calling for term limits there."

You dont see merkel demading a change of rules the moment things dosent go acourt of her, aparently this is fine here

Edited by unknowing on Mar 2nd 2020 at 1:31:40 PM

Think whatever you want, laculus and Golden Kaos, the facts are that it was not a "coup", Añez is not a "far-right racist" and Morales trying to be president for life (and changing the constitution to do so) is and will always be wrong.

Exactly, what is your interest in defending left-wing dictatorships?

Edited by JohnnyFR00 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 3:38:36 AM

I still have to read a bit more to have a fully informed opinion about the situation in Bolivia, but my cursory take based on what I've read so far is that Evo should have just stepped down and spent his time training a successor instead of trying to run again and that the situation as a whole doesn't look particularly great.

That being said, I feel like there's been a failure to communicate here properly from the start when it comes to this Bolivia stuff, and people are assuming bad faith without bothering to try and consider why people feel the way they do.

If you're from Europe or the US, it might seem like worrying about Evo is ridiculous. And in my own country I often feel like people evoke Venezuela as a bogieman even when it's not appropriate as an ignorant or bad faith argument. But it can't be denied that for a long time leftist politicians gave Chávez and Maduro too much of a pass even though their government was getting increasingly authoritarian and ultimately his regime led to an increase in poverty, inflation, supply shortages and a refugee crisis. In fact that's my biggest criticism of the Worker's Party in Brazil and Lula specifically, him campaigning for Maduro made the brazilian left looked hypocritical when they criticized Bolsonaro for supporting authoritarian regimes and was terrible politics. Evo's close association with Chávez and wanting to extend his term limits is going to understandably make people a bit antsy. You can't make an argument about the validity of the idea of term limits in a vacuum without considering the sociopolitical context of the region, and that's what I feel a lot of the american/european posters are missing here. Does that mean what's going on right now is good? Of course not, and if you feel that this degree of concern for Morales' actions is unjustified even with context, you are free to make that argument, but you have to acknowledge the context first instead of simply ignoring it.

On the other hand, I feel like some of the latin american posters here are ignoring how a lot of this situation looks from an outsider perspective and how assuming that it's democracy as usual might come off as a bit naive. Even with the context of the region, I don't think you can say what's happening in Bolivia looks particularly good. In fact I'd say in context, it makes the military intervening look a lot more ominous. From a general global political POV, a lot of the news that dripped out during the whole ordeal made it seem like it was going to end up giving space to a lot of reactionary political elements in Bolivia which ultimately is not really better than Evo at all, because by definition those kind of people don't respect democracy either. It doesn't make what Evo did good or advisable and it doesn't mean the solution was to let him do what he wants, but I can see why all the preoccupation with him doesn't look that reasonable given the optics of the situation.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Mar 2nd 2020 at 7:16:15 AM

Is pretty much values dissonance here when it come to politics.

In my opinion I dont like añez, I find her a very old conservative politician and im worry if she cant make a transition, specially since it look she is having ideas of staying in power.

BUT and this is the thing, Evo have for a while getting to confortable with is position, him getting away after people told him no, sum with his "I have to stay, people reaaaaally need me" come as creepy, the same messianic stuff we have seen plenty of time, specially since abolish term limits out of nowhere is in the same ballpark as chavismo(specially since he was his most arder suporter over cuba) and that is awfull.

And is not just people siding with them but when it come to social critique over it, suddenly it stop, just here the idea that the habilitate him after people told him no and the fact MAS didnt have anyone else come as "well, what a coincidence but nothing bad here" to what I saw in one page, people saying he should make a militia only loyal to him, kinda saying his only mistake was being soft with oposition and other narrative that would sound like hard men doing hard stuff, but for some reason that shit is allow to fly.

I always feel the left kinda soft ball when it come to their own, even when they really shoudnt.

Thank you.

The military gave an extrajudicial request for the President to step down. That's like, by definition a coup.

She's pretty ok with equating Indigenous people to Satanists who should stick to ''their'' parts of the country.

Still meh on the term limits thing, it's a little iffy (especially given the regional history and context, I get why people would get antsy) - defo prefer the successor route - but wrong? Like, inherently moral-judgement wrong? Nah.

Calling Bolivia under Morales a dictatorship. After Morales literally offered to re-run the election he won without cheating as an olive branch to his opposition. Ok, you're clearly not arguing in good faith.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Mar 3rd 2020 at 10:12:52 AM

Was it morally wrong trying to overturn the term limit by a referendum? No, but a bit iffy since this is just the kind of thing out of an aspiring autocrats' playbook.

But defying the very same referendum with the help of a very, very questionable legal argument is something no one who is supposedly on the site of democracy should have done.

Again, I don't care and I will stand by my opinion, and I'm glad Morales is out, regardless if it was a coup or not. Something tells me you'd be applauding' if it had been the other way around (a right-wing president being deposed and replaced by a left-wing one).

You'd be wrong.

A left-wing military-backed coup to displace a democratically elected right-wing leader is equally contemptible.

"After Morales literally offered to re-run the election he won without cheating as an olive branch to his opposition"

This was after people make a fuss of what many consider a the moment something fishy going on and after morales said he won handly without a second run and after as we kept saying, he use a dogy legal argument to put himself again after people told him no and after he have three periods?.

I dont like the cup but really, what more time he need a this point?.

I seriously doubt it a this point, considering that even today people still strugle to said chavez did back two decade ago was coup atempt I dont hold my breath.

As Daniel Ortega's descent into tyranny equal to possibly even worse than the already-horrid rightist regime he deposed indicates, leftists who come to power via violent coups don't exactly have a good track record for respecting basic human rights.

Morales did cheat to stay in power for life. Over a million people protested against him and it's clear they don't want any more socialism.