Pablo Stefanoni, La Paz
"Move from words to action." This phrase flew around in the evaluations and self-evaluations in August of the strengths and weaknesses of the Bolivian government. First it was the turn of the social movements close to the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party to assess the government's performance. They met on August 16 in Cochabamba together with left-wing President Evo Morales, Bolivia's first-ever indigenous leader.
Afterwards, came the government's self-evaluation, bringing together 14 ministers and 44 vice ministers over August 18-19 in the town of Huatajata, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The only ones missing were the minister for production and micro-businesses, Celinda Sosa, and her vice minister, who were signing agreements of cooperation in Tehran.
The assessment was clear: the activity of Morales was not enough to fill the black holes in the government's management, products of the deficiencies of the ministers and tensions within the government.
One example expresses the connection of these weaknesses. Just as the government was passing the imaginary six-month line — it is seven months old — the red light began to flash as the "honeymoon period" for the government started to end with the population. Up until now, the central administration has only spent 20% of the annual budget, while the municipalities (which enjoy autonomy through the Law of Popular Participation) have spent only 40% of their budgets and the prefectures (state governments) 25% — a real paradox in a poor country plagued by deficiencies in basic infrastructure, housing and roadways.
It was around the government's management, and not the issues of the big political decisions, that the social movements aimed their principal criticisms: it has been deficient, which — along with the suspected corruption of some functionaries — is conspiring against the transformation promised by the "revolutionary" ideology of welfare for the most forgotten.
The discontent over the new public ethic that Morales wants to impose has a name: Jorge Alvarado, president of the state petroleum company YPFB. Alvarado signed a questionable contract with an intermediary to sell petroleum to Brazil that was annulled by the superintendent for hydrocarbons.
Nevertheless, the functionary was ratified by Morales, who denounced the "internal and external enemies of the nationalisation" as the authors of the accusations against Alvarado. Today this issue is a banner for the debilitated opposition.
According to sources, the minister of government, Alicia Munoz, one of the ones who has made the most trip-ups in her declarations to the media, reached the point of tears in the middle of her assessment in front of the president at the Huatajata meeting.
An operation under her direction on June 10 against the "sin techo" (without roofs) — manipulated by a mafia of illegal loteadores (land speculators) according to the government — left one person dead at unknown hands (the police had not been authorised to use firearms).
In the midst of growing discontent among the police, the minister (who has the police under her control) couldn't come up with a better way to justify the higher wages that the military enjoy than saying that "it is a problem of quality".
The minister of education, Felix Patzi, is being confronted by both the Trotskyist-led teachers union (he declared a strike to be illegal on August 18) and the church because of his project for a secular education. However, Patzi seemed to pass the test.
Overall, Morales recognised deficiencies in his coordination with the ministers. This, for now, saves their heads from rolling.