Bolivian President Luis Arce and his political mentor Evo Morales began a seven-day march to La Paz on Tuesday in a show of strength and unity following anti-government protests that forced the president to repeal some questioned laws.
Hundreds of supporters of Arce and Morales gathered in the highland town of Caracollo, from where they will walk 150 kilometers. The ruling party hope to gather more than half a million supporters when the column enters La Paz next week.
“I don’t feel like just sisters and brothers,” said Arce, who accompanied the march at its beginning for a few kilometers and then returned to her office. “Let your management continue, dear president, here we are in your support,” said a militant to the state television station Bolivia TV.
For more than two weeks street vendors, transporters and small merchants staged marches and protests across the country against a law to combat illicit profits that protesters considered confiscatory. The protests were supported by opposition parties and organizations.
They were the largest protests recorded since the 2019 political crisis that caused 37 deaths and led to Morales’ resignation from the presidency after elections reported as fraudulent in which the politician was seeking a fourth term. The government accused opponents of instigating the protest to destabilize Arce.
The demonstrations on both sides have once again polarized the country and opened the wounds of the crisis of two years ago amid growing discontent over the increase in poverty and unemployment, according to analysts.
Morales is president of the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS), which controls the majority of the Legislature and remains active in politics, which has led opponents to accuse him of influencing the Arce government.
“On Monday 29 (November) we are going to destroy La Paz, we are going to demonstrate the strength of the change process,” said Morales, who the day before was declared “persona no grata” by the Peruvian Congress, which accuses him of interference in affairs of that country.
“Our country is internationally humiliated by the actions of Evo Morales, the fugitive dictator, who mocks brother peoples, does not respect the sovereignty of the States and continues to lie about the false coup to whitewash his fraud (in the 2019 elections) ”Wrote the former president and opposition leader Carlos Mesa on his Twitter account.
.