After the institutional collapse following the right-wing coup against President Evo Morales, in November of 2019, under the auspices of external forces, which ended with the installation of a de facto government, the current Bolivian leadership is moving forward implementing its proposals to rebuild the country. Three months after taking office, President Luis Arce has established a fundamental axis for this objective: building unity.
His approach emphasizes this national necessity, based on the strength of the Bolivian people's struggle for full sovereignty, and he insists that unity must be consolidated on the basis of the principles of dignity, complementarity, balance and equity.
According to the Bolivian Information Agency, the economic crisis left by the coup President, Jeanine Áñez, produced a decline of more than 11% in per capita income and a 9% drop in the Basic Services Consumption Quantity Index (electricity, drinking water and liquefied petroleum gas). In addition, public investment fell, the unemployment rate doubled and the National Treasury’s internal debt increased. The causes? The nation's ill-fated return to neoliberalism.
President Arce and his Movement Toward Socialism team, in office since November 8, had clearly defined the path to be taken, returning the Plurinational State to the quest for social equity, and energizing the country's social and economic actors.
In order to reverse the damage done by the coup government, measures to expand the internal market were adopted, to generate demand for products and boost key sectors, in other words, improving the population's access to the market.
As a way to support more equitable distribution of income, the Integral Pension System was implemented for retirees, with an increase in benefits. With a view toward encouraging a greater volume of purchases of goods and services in the endogenous market, a cash refund of the Value Added Tax was implemented, and taxes were increased for the wealthy, which affected only the 152 richest individuals in the country.
These and other provisions are intended to achieve growth of around 4.8%, in the Gross Domestic Product (gdp), attract greater investments, reduce current government spending and maintain social bonuses, to strengthen income redistribution. The Social Community Productive Economic Model is to be consolidated and the country's economic growth recovered.
At the same time, the government's main priority today is addressing the health crisis, with mass testing to identify sars-cov2 infections, early diagnosis, and negotiating contracts for the acquisition of vaccines, test kits, medications, medical devices, supplies, reagents, as well as other goods, equipment and services to battle the COVID-19 epidemic.
In addition, the signing of two contracts with vaccine laboratories in Russia and India, plus a donation from the firm Covax, promoted by the UN, are notable moves by the new administration. The strategic governmental plan includes the hiring of 3,025 doctors, nurses and health assistants, to reinforce the fight against the pandemic, and increasing the budget for the sector by more than 10%.
Bolivia has demonstrated how successful a government can be when its principal goal is to benefit the people, and today, with the return of the Movement Toward Socialism, the failed neoliberal model is not an option. In only three months, Bolivians have recovered the dreams dashed by the savage coup that left 35 dead, 833 injured and 1,504 arrests, and the courts are working to provide justice for the victims.
