Movement for Socialism (Bolivia)
Encyclopedia
The Movement for Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples , alternately referred to as "Movement Toward Socialism" or "Movement to Socialism", is a left-wing, socialist, Bolivia
n political organization led by Evo Morales
, founded in 1995. Its followers are known as masistas.
MAS-IPSP has governed the country since 2006, following the first ever majority victory by a single party in the December 2005 elections
. MAS-IPSP evolved out of the movement to defend the interests of coca
growers. Evo Morales has articulated the goals of his party and popular organizations as the need to achieve pluri-national unity, and to develop a new hydrocarbon
law which guarantees 50% of revenue to Bolivia, although political leaders of MAS-IPSP recently interviewed showed interest in complete nationalization
of the fossil fuel
industries.
farmers as their means of survival, but also encountered new hardships in their new profession. The growth of the coca farmer community resulted in a sharp numerical growth of organizations such as Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia
(CSUTCB) and Confederación Sindical de Colonizadores de Bolivia. The movement built alliances with the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB), and mobilized joint protests in a 1992 campaign titled "500 years of resistance of the indigenous peoples", culminating in a march to La Paz
where a manifestation was held on October 12, 1992 (Columbus Day
). The 1992 campaign marked the emergence of a 'peasant-Indigenous' movement.
However, CSUTCB was wary of building a political party to contest state power. The experiences of the 1980s, when the CSUTCB leadership had been divided over electoral candidatures (of leaders such as Jenaro Flores Santos
and Víctor Hugo Cárdenas
) had been negative. Rather the organization began discussing the possibility of launching a 'political instrument', a structure in which the trade unions would enters as collective members. The idea would be to combine social and political struggles, to have one branch in the social movement
s and one political branch. According to Lino Villca
there were also discussions about forming an armed wing of the movement.
Carlos Burgoa Maya traces the initiative for a political instrument to the Third Congress of the CSUTCB (26 June–3 July 1987, Cochabamba) in which several proposals were merged into a document proposing an "Assembly of Nationalities" including traditional authorities to forge "political instruments of the nationalities." In the COB's 9th Congress (May 1992, Sucre), a thesis for worker-indigenous unity in "constructing a political instrument" was approved. Numerous prominent future leaders of the MAS, including Evo Morales, Félix Patzi, and David Choquehuanca met on 7 November 1992 in a gathering organized by CSUTCB, CSCB, CIDOB, FNMCB (Bartolina Sisa), and the COB, which decided call for withdrawal from existing parties and the consolidation of an independent political force. The August–September 1994 cocalero march also endorsed the creation of a political instrument.
The creation of a political instrument received the backing of the sixth CSUTCB congress in 1994, and in March 1995 CSUTCB convened a congress titled 'Land, Territory and Political Instrument' in Santa Cruz de la Sierra
. Present at the congress were CSUTCB, CSCB, the Bartolina Sisa National Federation of Peasant Women of Bolivia and CIDOB. The congress resulted in the foundation of the Assembly for the Sovereignty of the Peoples
(ASP), under the leadership of the Cochabamba peasant leader Alejo Véliz
as the main leader and Evo Morales
in second position.
From 1996 onwards, Evo Morales was a rising star in the ASP leadership. Soon he became a competitor of Veliz. Internal conflict emerged between the followers of Morales and Veliz, evistas and alejistas, surged. ASP wanted to contest the 1997 national elections, but never obtained the registration of a political party at the CNE. Instead the group contested the election of the lists of the United Left
. Veliz was candidate for presidency and for parliament (on the proportional representation
list). However, many trade unions decided not to support Veliz's candidature, accusing him of having manipulated the candidate lists of the United Left. Four ASP members of the Chamber of Deputies
were elected from the Chapare province
(the entire United Left group); Evo Morales, Román Loayza Caero
, Félix Sanchéz Veizaga and Néstor Guzmán Villarroel
.
At the time of its foundation, an IPSP flag was adopted. It was coffee-coloured and green, with a sun in the middle.
In order to contest the 1999 municipal election
IPSP borrowed the registration (and party name) of a falangist
splinter faction (Movimiento al Socialismo-Unzaguista). The decision to go for elections as MAS was taken in Cochabamba in 1998. IPSP decided to adopt the name, banner and colours (cobalt blue, black and white) of MAS. In January 1999, the organization adopted the name MAS-IPSP.
This move provoked a split between IPSP and the new CSUTCB leader Felipe Quispe
. Quispe stated that he was unable to accept to contest the elections under a name tainted by a fascist past and that the falangist profile meant a negatition of indigenous identity. In the 1999 elections Quispe aligned himself with Veliz's group, which had decided to contest on the lists of the Communist Party of Bolivia
). In the Cochabamba region the verbal confrontations between the two sides were often tense, and the Veliz group launched the slogan "MAS is Unzaguist, falangist, heil heil Hitler". MAS-IPSP itself however stressed that the adaptation of the name MAS was a mere formality, the membership cards issued by the organization carried the slogan "MAS legalmente, IPSP legítimamente".
MAS-IPSP got 65,425 votes (3.3% of the nationwide votes) and won 81 local council seats (4.8% of the seats in the country) in 1999. According to a study by Xavier Albó an Victor Quispe, the vast majority of the MAS-IPSP councilors elected in the 1999 municipal election were indigenous
. In the Cochabamba Department
MAS-IPSP obtained 39% of the votes winning seven mayoral posts. The MAS vote in Cochabamba was almost completely confined to the Chapare, Carrasco and Ayopaya provinces. In the capital of the Department (Cochabamba
) the MAS mayoral candidate only got 0.88% (less than the Communist Party candidate, Alejo Veliz who got 1.1%). The mayoral post of Cochabamba was won by Manfred Reyes Villa
of the New Republican Force
, who got 51.2% of the votes in the city.
(MIP, Felipe Quispe's new party), the anti-system opposition in the country. Whilst Bolivian politics had seen several political parties contesting on populist
platsforms during the past decades, MAS-IPSP and MIP differed from these parties through its strong connections to the peasant organizations. However, the fact that MIP had been accorded registration as a political party by the National Electoral Court (in spite of falling short of having the 10,000 members requirered for registration) angered MAS-IPSP followers. Both within MAS-IPSP and amongst political analysts the smooth registration of MIP was described as a move by the political establishment to divide the indigenous vote and to spoil the chances of a possible MAS-IPSP/MIP alliance. By this time IPSP had been denied registration by the National Electoral Court four times, citing minor details.
The period of 2000-2002 was characterized by a series of social struggles that contributed to the radicalization of the Bolivian polity; the water war in Cochabamba 2000, Aymara uprisings in 2000 and 2001 and coca growers' struggle in Chapare. While social movements are by no means new in Bolivia, a country with a long history of revolution due to political and class struggle, this protest cycle marked a renewal of militancy and growing successful organizational planning, which had not been witnessed before.
The expulsion of Morales from the parliament in January 2002 contributed to the political popularity of MAS-IPSP (Morales was expelled from the parliament after being accused of master-minding violent confrontations between police and coca growers in Sacaba).
Ahead of the 2002 national elections, MAS-IPSP sought to expand its influence outside its peasant base. Evo Morales stood as presidential candidate and Antonio Peredo as vice-presidential candidate. By launching Peredo for the vice-presidency, MAS-IPSP attempted to gain influence amongst the urban middle classes. MAS-IPSP also made an appeal for the supporters of the Marxist left groups to join the campaign and present themselves as MAS-IPSP candidates. Prominent examples of MAS-IPSP leaders recruited for the 2002 election campaign included Gustavo Torrico, Manuel Morales Dávila and Jorge Alvaro.
In their election campaign, MAS-IPSP championed 'national sovereignty', denouncing U.S. interventions in Bolivian affairs. The polite elite and proponents of neoliberal
policies were denounced as 'traitors' supported by the United States. The appeal of MAS-IPSP was alsp aided by the interventions of US ambassador, Manuel Rocha
, who threatened Bolivians by cutting U.S. economic aid to Bolivia if Morales won. Morales has credited ambassador Rocha for the success of MAS, stating that "[e]very statement [Rocha] made against us helped us to grow and awaken the conscience of the people." Anti-US sentiments was further exacerbated when the new ambassador, David Greenlee, made it clear that he would not approve of any president other than Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
(Goni).
The electoral advance of MAS-IPSP was aided by the implosion of the political party Conscience of the Fatherland (CONDEPA). CONDEPA was a populist party which was based the urban poor, often Aymaras who had migrated to the urban centres of Bolivia. The party had lost much of its popular legitimacy as it was coopted by Hugo Banzer
's government, and the party had suffered the death of its main leader just before the 2002 elections. In the polls CONDEPA lost all of their 22 parliamentary seats.
Whilst Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was re-elected as President of Bolivia, the Evo Morales came in second place with just 1.5% less votes than Sánchez de Lozada. MAS-IPSP got 14.6% of the valid uninominal vote, which gave the movement 27 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and eight out of 27 seats in the Senate. The election result shocked both political analysts as well as MAS-IPSP itself. Out of the elected MAS-IPSP legislators, ten identified themselves as indigenous or peasants, twelve as leftwing intellectuals or labour leaders.
The fifth national congress of MAS-IPSP was held in Oruro
December 13–14, 2003.
, Evo Morales was again the presidential candidate of MAS-IPSP. He won a clear majority with 53.7% of the valid presidential vote and MAS-IPSP obtained 43.5% of the valid uninominal vote, which gave it 72 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 12 out of 27 seats in the Senate. In the 2005 prefect elections, MAS campaigned for all nine departmental prefectures (governorships), but only won three: Chuquisaca (43%), Oruro (41.0%), and Potosí (42.7%).
When the first MAS-IPSP cabinet was formed, it had Andrés Soliz Rada as Minister for Hydrocarbons, David Choquehuanca as Foreign Minister, Casimira Rodríguez as Justice Minister, Salvador Ric Reira Minister for Public Works and Services, Hugo Salvatierra as Rural Development Minister, Álex Gálvez Mamami as Labour Minister, Abel Mamami as Water Minister, Félix Patzi
as Education Minister, Félipe Caceres as Vice Minister of Social Defense, Alicia Muñoz as Minister of Government, Juan Ramón Quintana as Minister of the Presidency, Carlos Villegas as Minister of Economic Planning and Walter Villarroel as Mining Minister. Two MAS-IPSP heavy-weights, Santos Ramírez and Edmundo Novillo (since elected governor of Cochabamba
in April 2010 local elections) became the president of the Senate and the House of Deputies respectively.
The 2006 elections to the Constituent Assembly further consolidated the position of MAS-IPSP as the dominant force in Bolivian politics. After the elections Román Loayza Caero became the head of the MAS-IPSP faction in the Constituent Assembly
.
In 2007 MAS-IPSP was able to register itself as MAS-IPSP at the CNE.
On August 10, 2008 a vote of confidence referendum
was held regarding the posts of president Morales, vice-president Garcia Linera and different prefects. Morales and Garcia Linera got their mandate affirmed by a wide majority, reaching 83% of the votes in La Paz and 71% of the votes in Cochabamba
in their favour. But they also obtained significant support in the 'Media Luna
' departments (Santa Cruz 41%, Beni 44%, Pando 53% and Tarija 50%), indicating the consolidation of MAS-IPSP as a national political force.
In the 2010 regional elections
, MAS-IPSP won the post of governor in six departements (La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Pando, Chuquisaca and Cochabamba) and finished second in the remaining three (Santa Cruz, Tarija and Beni). In Chuquisaca MAS-IPSP had launched 29-year old Estaban Urquizu as its candidate for governor. Urquizu won with 53.9% of the votes, becoming the youngest governor in Bolivian history. In La Paz Department MAS-IPSP dropped its candidate Félix Patzi shortly before the elections, after Patzi had been arrested for drunk driving.
The election was also marked by candidatures of MAS-IPSP dissident. MAS-IPSP co-founder Lino Villca had founded the Movement for Sovereignty
(MPS), which contested the elections. Other former MAS-IPSP activists involved in founding the MPS include Óscar Chirinos, Miguel Machaca, and Rufo Calle.
, stating in a 2003 interview that in the "ayllu
people live in community, with values such as solidarity and reciprocity'. Regarding the question of national identity, MAS-IPSP borrows discourse from the katarista
tradition and from the indigenous peoples' movement in eastern Bolivia, criticizing the modern nation state as a failed construct of 'internal colonialism' and inherently racist. Thus the movement seeks to construct a plurinational state based on autonomies of the indigenous peoples. In the MAS-IPSP discourse 'nation' and 'people' are often equated, whilst the oligarchy is portrayed as anti-national.
However, the katarista discourse was not a feature of the ideological profile of the IPSP at the time of its foundation. IPSP surged as a movement of the peasantry, amongst colonizers and coca growers. The katarista discourse was absorbed later, largely borrowed from Félipe Quispe's rhetoric from then struggles of 2000. However MAS-IPSP never went as far as to create an exclusively indigenous political profile (as Quispe), and Morales retained that an alliance with non-indigenous actors and the middle classes was a necessity. The seventh congress of MAS-IPSP, held in January 2009, approved a document titled "Communitarian socialism to liberate Bolivia from the colonial state", envisioning the path of a 'cultural and democratic revolution' in Bolivia.
MAS-IPSP itself does not have an ideological centre, and the different constituent movements belong to slightly different trends of thought. Within the MAS-IPSP fold Marxists, social democrats, anarchist, including virulently anti-communist strands are found. In the words of Alvaro García Linera, the political character of MAS-IPSP has evolved through the combination of "an ecclectic indianism and the critical and self-critical traditions of the intellectual leftwing that began to Indianize Marxism from the 1980s and onwards". According to García Linera, a 'flexible indianism' enabled MAS-IPSP to gather support from a variety of sectors. García Linera characterizes MAS-IPSP as 'centre-left
', stating that the goal of the movement is the establishment of a form of 'Andean capitalism'. In the findings of Latinobarómetro
surveys until 2002, MAS voters identified themselves as 2.7 of a scale between 0 and 10 (in which 0 represented the far left and 10 represented the far right).
According to Marta Harnecker
and Federico Fuentes MAS-IPSP represents a 'new indigenous nationalism' based on two sets of historical memories, that of the peasant movement (represented through CSUTCB) and that of the indigenous movement (represented through CIDOB), and combining elements of indigenismo, nationalism and 'miners' Marxism'.Harnecker, Marta
. MAS-IPSP: Instrumento político que surge de los movimientos sociales. p. 38
According to Carlos Toranzo Roca, the politics of MAS-IPSP is largely a continuation of the traditional Latin American populism, which in Bolivia is rooted in the 1952 revolution. Key elements of this feature is, according to Toranzo Roca, clientelistic relations of distribution combined with anti-imperialist and nationalist discourse.
has developed, which also emerged as a political vehicle of social movements.
Clause 42 of the Organic Bylaws of MAS-IPSP stipulated that candidates in national and local elections should be elected through direct vote at assemblies. The majority of the MAS-IPSP candidatures in the 1999 and 2002 elections were selected through this method. However some candidates in the 2002 and 2005 elections were directly appointed by Morales.
The seventh congress of MAS-IPSP was held January 10–12, 2009. At this congress two organizations were included as new members of MAS-IPSP; the National Federation of Mining Cooperatives (Fencomin, which claims a membership of around 40,000) and the Regional Workers Centre (COR) from El Alto
. The Bolivian Workers' Center
(COB) and the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu
(CONAMAQ) are not part of MAS-IPSP, but supportive of the government.
(MSM) in the 2009 national elections. Shortly afterward, Evo Morales publicly broke with the MSM and its representatives in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly now form an independent block.
The three founding organizations of the MAS-IPSP are joined by CONAMAQ and the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) in the Pact of Unity
; this group has included other organizations in the past.
A larger alliance, the National Coordination for Change
(CONALCAM) was formed during the Bolivian Constituent Assembly, and includes MAS-IPSP executive and legislative politicians as well as social movement organizations.
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n political organization led by Evo Morales
Evo Morales
Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...
, founded in 1995. Its followers are known as masistas.
MAS-IPSP has governed the country since 2006, following the first ever majority victory by a single party in the December 2005 elections
Bolivian presidential election, 2005
The 2005 Bolivian presidential election was held on December 18, 2005. The two main candidates were Evo Morales of the Movement Towards Socialism Party, and Jorge Quiroga, leader of the Democratic and Social Power Party and former head of the Acción Democrática Nacionalista Party. Felipe Quispe,...
. MAS-IPSP evolved out of the movement to defend the interests of coca
Coca
Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in many traditional Andean cultures...
growers. Evo Morales has articulated the goals of his party and popular organizations as the need to achieve pluri-national unity, and to develop a new hydrocarbon
Hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
law which guarantees 50% of revenue to Bolivia, although political leaders of MAS-IPSP recently interviewed showed interest in complete nationalization
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
of the fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
industries.
Origins
The roots of MAS-IPSP can be traced to the closures of the Bolivian Mining Corporation and shut-down of various mines during the 1980s. Thousands of former miners became cocaCoca
Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in many traditional Andean cultures...
farmers as their means of survival, but also encountered new hardships in their new profession. The growth of the coca farmer community resulted in a sharp numerical growth of organizations such as Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia
Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia
The Single Union Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia is a union of peasants in Bolivia.The CSUTCB was formed in 1979 in opposition to government-sponsored peasant unions. Under the leadership of the Tupac Katari Revolutionary Movement, the CSUTCB became an independent organization...
(CSUTCB) and Confederación Sindical de Colonizadores de Bolivia. The movement built alliances with the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB), and mobilized joint protests in a 1992 campaign titled "500 years of resistance of the indigenous peoples", culminating in a march to La Paz
La Paz
Nuestra Señora de La Paz is the administrative capital of Bolivia, as well as the departmental capital of the La Paz Department, and the second largest city in the country after Santa Cruz de la Sierra...
where a manifestation was held on October 12, 1992 (Columbus Day
Columbus Day
Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday...
). The 1992 campaign marked the emergence of a 'peasant-Indigenous' movement.
However, CSUTCB was wary of building a political party to contest state power. The experiences of the 1980s, when the CSUTCB leadership had been divided over electoral candidatures (of leaders such as Jenaro Flores Santos
Jenaro Flores Santos
Jenaro Flores Santos is a Bolivian trade union leader and politician.Flores Santos was the founder of the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, or CSUTCB...
and Víctor Hugo Cárdenas
Víctor Hugo Cárdenas
Víctor Hugo Cárdenas Conde is a Bolivian indigenous Aymara activist and politician. He is the leader of the MRTKL party...
) had been negative. Rather the organization began discussing the possibility of launching a 'political instrument', a structure in which the trade unions would enters as collective members. The idea would be to combine social and political struggles, to have one branch in the social movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
s and one political branch. According to Lino Villca
Lino Villca
Lino Villca Delgado is a Bolivian politician, a leader of the coca growers movement in the Yungas, a co-founder of the Movement for Socialism who turned party dissident. His movement career began with a leadership role in the coca growers association of La Asunta, followed by work in the...
there were also discussions about forming an armed wing of the movement.
Carlos Burgoa Maya traces the initiative for a political instrument to the Third Congress of the CSUTCB (26 June–3 July 1987, Cochabamba) in which several proposals were merged into a document proposing an "Assembly of Nationalities" including traditional authorities to forge "political instruments of the nationalities." In the COB's 9th Congress (May 1992, Sucre), a thesis for worker-indigenous unity in "constructing a political instrument" was approved. Numerous prominent future leaders of the MAS, including Evo Morales, Félix Patzi, and David Choquehuanca met on 7 November 1992 in a gathering organized by CSUTCB, CSCB, CIDOB, FNMCB (Bartolina Sisa), and the COB, which decided call for withdrawal from existing parties and the consolidation of an independent political force. The August–September 1994 cocalero march also endorsed the creation of a political instrument.
The creation of a political instrument received the backing of the sixth CSUTCB congress in 1994, and in March 1995 CSUTCB convened a congress titled 'Land, Territory and Political Instrument' in Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, commonly known as Santa Cruz, is the capital of the Santa Cruz department in eastern Bolivia and the largest city in the country...
. Present at the congress were CSUTCB, CSCB, the Bartolina Sisa National Federation of Peasant Women of Bolivia and CIDOB. The congress resulted in the foundation of the Assembly for the Sovereignty of the Peoples
Assembly for the Sovereignty of the Peoples
The Assembly for the Sovereignty of the Peoples was a political organization in Bolivia. It was formed as a "political instrument" of the popular movements of the country. Alejo Véliz was the national president of ASP.-History:...
(ASP), under the leadership of the Cochabamba peasant leader Alejo Véliz
Alejo Véliz
Alejo Véliz Lazo is a Bolivian politician and activist. He is a member of the ASP party. Véliz is a former executive secretary of the Federación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Cochabamba , and former Secretary General of the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de...
as the main leader and Evo Morales
Evo Morales
Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...
in second position.
From 1996 onwards, Evo Morales was a rising star in the ASP leadership. Soon he became a competitor of Veliz. Internal conflict emerged between the followers of Morales and Veliz, evistas and alejistas, surged. ASP wanted to contest the 1997 national elections, but never obtained the registration of a political party at the CNE. Instead the group contested the election of the lists of the United Left
United Left (Bolivia)
The United Left was a political coalition in Bolivia. IU was launched ahead of the 1989 national elections, as a successor of the United People's Front...
. Veliz was candidate for presidency and for parliament (on the proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
list). However, many trade unions decided not to support Veliz's candidature, accusing him of having manipulated the candidate lists of the United Left. Four ASP members of the Chamber of Deputies
National Congress of Bolivia
The Plurinational Legislative Assembly also known as the National Congress is the national legislature of Bolivia, based in the nation's de facto capital, La Paz....
were elected from the Chapare province
Chapare Province
Chapare, also called The Chapare and is pronounced Cha-pa-reh, is a rural province in the northern region of Cochabamba Department in central Bolivia. The majority of the territory consists of valley rainforests that surround the area's main waterway, the Chapare River, which is also a tributary of...
(the entire United Left group); Evo Morales, Román Loayza Caero
Román Loayza Caero
Román Loayza Caero is a Bolivian politician and farmer. He was a prominent leader in the farmers' trade union movement and one of the founders of the Movement for Socialism ....
, Félix Sanchéz Veizaga and Néstor Guzmán Villarroel
Néstor Guzmán Villarroel
Néstor Guzman Villarroel is a Bolivian politician and trade unionist. A tailor and farmer by profession, he became the press and propaganda secretary of the trade union in Chaguarmayu in 1984, then becoming the relations secretary of the Chaguarmayu trade union the following year...
.
Foundation and local elections
After the elections a split occurred in ASP, Evo Morales was expelled from the organization. In 1998 the supporters of Evo Morales founded the IPSP. Notably, the majority of the grassroots supporters of ASP sided with Morales in the split. One of the prominent ASP leaders who sided with Morales was Román Loayza Caero, leader of CSUTCB.At the time of its foundation, an IPSP flag was adopted. It was coffee-coloured and green, with a sun in the middle.
In order to contest the 1999 municipal election
Bolivian municipal election, 1999
Municipal elections were held in Bolivia, on December 5, 1999, in all 311 municipalities across the country. The elections marked a milestone in the continuous deterioration of the political influence of the traditional parties...
IPSP borrowed the registration (and party name) of a falangist
Falangism
Falangism is the political ideology of the Spanish Falange as well as derivatives of it in other countries. In its original form, Falangism is widely associated as a fascist ideology, the Spanish Falange denied this, claiming it was not a copy of any foreign movement...
splinter faction (Movimiento al Socialismo-Unzaguista). The decision to go for elections as MAS was taken in Cochabamba in 1998. IPSP decided to adopt the name, banner and colours (cobalt blue, black and white) of MAS. In January 1999, the organization adopted the name MAS-IPSP.
This move provoked a split between IPSP and the new CSUTCB leader Felipe Quispe
Felipe Quispe
Felipe Quispe Huanca "El Mallku" is an ethnic Aymara Bolivian political leader. He heads the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement and has also been general secretary of the United Union Confederation of Working Peasants of Bolivia...
. Quispe stated that he was unable to accept to contest the elections under a name tainted by a fascist past and that the falangist profile meant a negatition of indigenous identity. In the 1999 elections Quispe aligned himself with Veliz's group, which had decided to contest on the lists of the Communist Party of Bolivia
Communist Party of Bolivia
The Communist Party of Bolivia is a communist party in Bolivia. It was founded in 1950 by Raúl Ruiz González and other former members of the Revolutionary Left Party . It remained small and did not hold its first national party congress until 1959....
). In the Cochabamba region the verbal confrontations between the two sides were often tense, and the Veliz group launched the slogan "MAS is Unzaguist, falangist, heil heil Hitler". MAS-IPSP itself however stressed that the adaptation of the name MAS was a mere formality, the membership cards issued by the organization carried the slogan "MAS legalmente, IPSP legítimamente".
MAS-IPSP got 65,425 votes (3.3% of the nationwide votes) and won 81 local council seats (4.8% of the seats in the country) in 1999. According to a study by Xavier Albó an Victor Quispe, the vast majority of the MAS-IPSP councilors elected in the 1999 municipal election were indigenous
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
. In the Cochabamba Department
Cochabamba Department
Cochabamba is one of the nine component departments of Bolivia. It is known to be the "granary" of the country because of its variety of agricultural products due to Cochabamba's geographical position. It has an area of 55,631 km². Its population, in the 2007 census, was 1,750,000...
MAS-IPSP obtained 39% of the votes winning seven mayoral posts. The MAS vote in Cochabamba was almost completely confined to the Chapare, Carrasco and Ayopaya provinces. In the capital of the Department (Cochabamba
Cochabamba
Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and is the fourth largest city in Bolivia with an urban population of 608,276 and a metropolitan population of more than 1,000,000 people...
) the MAS mayoral candidate only got 0.88% (less than the Communist Party candidate, Alejo Veliz who got 1.1%). The mayoral post of Cochabamba was won by Manfred Reyes Villa
Manfred Reyes Villa
Manfred Reyes Villa is a Bolivian politician, who was mayor of Cochabamba four times and ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2002 and 2009 against Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Evo Morales Ayma. He founded and led the Nueva Fuerza Republicana political party...
of the New Republican Force
New Republican Force
The New Republican Force is a center-right personalist political party in Bolivia.At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won 26.5 % of the popular vote and 25 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and two out of 27 seats in the Senate...
, who got 51.2% of the votes in the city.
Years of struggle
During the years of 1998-2002 the grassroot base of MAS-IPSP was consolidated, as a result of increasing repression against the coca growers' movement. MAS-IPSP represented, along with the smaller Indigenous Pachakuti MovementIndigenous Pachakuti Movement
The Pachakuti Indigenous Movement is a left-wing indigenist political party in Bolivia founded in november 2000....
(MIP, Felipe Quispe's new party), the anti-system opposition in the country. Whilst Bolivian politics had seen several political parties contesting on populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
platsforms during the past decades, MAS-IPSP and MIP differed from these parties through its strong connections to the peasant organizations. However, the fact that MIP had been accorded registration as a political party by the National Electoral Court (in spite of falling short of having the 10,000 members requirered for registration) angered MAS-IPSP followers. Both within MAS-IPSP and amongst political analysts the smooth registration of MIP was described as a move by the political establishment to divide the indigenous vote and to spoil the chances of a possible MAS-IPSP/MIP alliance. By this time IPSP had been denied registration by the National Electoral Court four times, citing minor details.
The period of 2000-2002 was characterized by a series of social struggles that contributed to the radicalization of the Bolivian polity; the water war in Cochabamba 2000, Aymara uprisings in 2000 and 2001 and coca growers' struggle in Chapare. While social movements are by no means new in Bolivia, a country with a long history of revolution due to political and class struggle, this protest cycle marked a renewal of militancy and growing successful organizational planning, which had not been witnessed before.
The expulsion of Morales from the parliament in January 2002 contributed to the political popularity of MAS-IPSP (Morales was expelled from the parliament after being accused of master-minding violent confrontations between police and coca growers in Sacaba).
Ahead of the 2002 national elections, MAS-IPSP sought to expand its influence outside its peasant base. Evo Morales stood as presidential candidate and Antonio Peredo as vice-presidential candidate. By launching Peredo for the vice-presidency, MAS-IPSP attempted to gain influence amongst the urban middle classes. MAS-IPSP also made an appeal for the supporters of the Marxist left groups to join the campaign and present themselves as MAS-IPSP candidates. Prominent examples of MAS-IPSP leaders recruited for the 2002 election campaign included Gustavo Torrico, Manuel Morales Dávila and Jorge Alvaro.
In their election campaign, MAS-IPSP championed 'national sovereignty', denouncing U.S. interventions in Bolivian affairs. The polite elite and proponents of neoliberal
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
policies were denounced as 'traitors' supported by the United States. The appeal of MAS-IPSP was alsp aided by the interventions of US ambassador, Manuel Rocha
Manuel Rocha
-Background:Rocha graduated from Taft School in 1969 and graduated from Yale University cum laude in 1973. He received a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University in 1976 and a Master of Arts in international relations from Georgetown University in 1978.Rocha began his...
, who threatened Bolivians by cutting U.S. economic aid to Bolivia if Morales won. Morales has credited ambassador Rocha for the success of MAS, stating that "[e]very statement [Rocha] made against us helped us to grow and awaken the conscience of the people." Anti-US sentiments was further exacerbated when the new ambassador, David Greenlee, made it clear that he would not approve of any president other than Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada y Sánchez de Bustamante , familiarly known as "Goni", is a Bolivian politician, businessman, and former President of Bolivia. A lifelong member of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario , he is credited for using "shock therapy", the economic theory championed by then...
(Goni).
The electoral advance of MAS-IPSP was aided by the implosion of the political party Conscience of the Fatherland (CONDEPA). CONDEPA was a populist party which was based the urban poor, often Aymaras who had migrated to the urban centres of Bolivia. The party had lost much of its popular legitimacy as it was coopted by Hugo Banzer
Hugo Banzer
Hugo Banzer Suárez was a politician, military general, dictator and President of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from August 22, 1971 to July 21, 1978, as a dictator; and then again from August 6, 1997 to August 7, 2001, as constitutional President.-Military and ideological...
's government, and the party had suffered the death of its main leader just before the 2002 elections. In the polls CONDEPA lost all of their 22 parliamentary seats.
Whilst Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was re-elected as President of Bolivia, the Evo Morales came in second place with just 1.5% less votes than Sánchez de Lozada. MAS-IPSP got 14.6% of the valid uninominal vote, which gave the movement 27 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and eight out of 27 seats in the Senate. The election result shocked both political analysts as well as MAS-IPSP itself. Out of the elected MAS-IPSP legislators, ten identified themselves as indigenous or peasants, twelve as leftwing intellectuals or labour leaders.
The fifth national congress of MAS-IPSP was held in Oruro
Oruro, Bolivia
Oruro is a city in Bolivia with a population of 235,393 , located about equidistant between La Paz and Sucre at approximately 3710 meters above sea level. It is the capital of the department of Oruro....
December 13–14, 2003.
2005 elections
In the 2005 general electionElections in Bolivia
Elections in Bolivia gives information on elections and election results in Bolivia.Bolivia elects on national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president and the vice-president are elected for a five-year term by the people or parliament . The National...
, Evo Morales was again the presidential candidate of MAS-IPSP. He won a clear majority with 53.7% of the valid presidential vote and MAS-IPSP obtained 43.5% of the valid uninominal vote, which gave it 72 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 12 out of 27 seats in the Senate. In the 2005 prefect elections, MAS campaigned for all nine departmental prefectures (governorships), but only won three: Chuquisaca (43%), Oruro (41.0%), and Potosí (42.7%).
In government
Since taking office, the MAS-IPSP government has emphazised modernization of the country, promoting industrialisation, increasing state intervention in the economy, promoting social and cultural inclusion, and redistribution of revenue from natural resources through various social service programs.When the first MAS-IPSP cabinet was formed, it had Andrés Soliz Rada as Minister for Hydrocarbons, David Choquehuanca as Foreign Minister, Casimira Rodríguez as Justice Minister, Salvador Ric Reira Minister for Public Works and Services, Hugo Salvatierra as Rural Development Minister, Álex Gálvez Mamami as Labour Minister, Abel Mamami as Water Minister, Félix Patzi
Félix Patzi
Félix Patzi Paco is a Bolivian academic and politician. A member of the Aymara ethnic group, he has been active in supporting indigenous movements in Bolivia. He served as Bolivia's Minister of Education in the government of Evo Morales from 2006 to 2007...
as Education Minister, Félipe Caceres as Vice Minister of Social Defense, Alicia Muñoz as Minister of Government, Juan Ramón Quintana as Minister of the Presidency, Carlos Villegas as Minister of Economic Planning and Walter Villarroel as Mining Minister. Two MAS-IPSP heavy-weights, Santos Ramírez and Edmundo Novillo (since elected governor of Cochabamba
Cochabamba
Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and is the fourth largest city in Bolivia with an urban population of 608,276 and a metropolitan population of more than 1,000,000 people...
in April 2010 local elections) became the president of the Senate and the House of Deputies respectively.
The 2006 elections to the Constituent Assembly further consolidated the position of MAS-IPSP as the dominant force in Bolivian politics. After the elections Román Loayza Caero became the head of the MAS-IPSP faction in the Constituent Assembly
Bolivian Constituent Assembly
The Bolivian Constituent Assembly, convened on August 6, 2006 in Sucre, with the purpose of drafting a new national constitution by December 14, 2007; extended from the original deadline of August 6, 2007. The Assembly approved the new Political Constitution of the State on 9 December 2007...
.
In 2007 MAS-IPSP was able to register itself as MAS-IPSP at the CNE.
On August 10, 2008 a vote of confidence referendum
Bolivian vote of confidence referendum, 2008
A vote of confidence in President Evo Morales in the form of a referendum was held in Bolivia on 10 August 2008. The vote was held to determine whether Morales, Vice President Álvaro García Linera, and eight out of nine departmental Prefects should stay in office. Morales received more than 67%...
was held regarding the posts of president Morales, vice-president Garcia Linera and different prefects. Morales and Garcia Linera got their mandate affirmed by a wide majority, reaching 83% of the votes in La Paz and 71% of the votes in Cochabamba
Cochabamba
Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and is the fourth largest city in Bolivia with an urban population of 608,276 and a metropolitan population of more than 1,000,000 people...
in their favour. But they also obtained significant support in the 'Media Luna
Media Luna
The Media Luna or Media Luna Ampliada refers to a group of four departments – Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, and Tarija – in Bolivia which became the geographic area of opposition to the national government led by Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism...
' departments (Santa Cruz 41%, Beni 44%, Pando 53% and Tarija 50%), indicating the consolidation of MAS-IPSP as a national political force.
In the 2010 regional elections
Bolivian regional election, 2010
The 2010 Bolivian regional elections were held on 4 April 2010. Departmental and municipal authorities were elected by an electorate of approximately 5 million people...
, MAS-IPSP won the post of governor in six departements (La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Pando, Chuquisaca and Cochabamba) and finished second in the remaining three (Santa Cruz, Tarija and Beni). In Chuquisaca MAS-IPSP had launched 29-year old Estaban Urquizu as its candidate for governor. Urquizu won with 53.9% of the votes, becoming the youngest governor in Bolivian history. In La Paz Department MAS-IPSP dropped its candidate Félix Patzi shortly before the elections, after Patzi had been arrested for drunk driving.
The election was also marked by candidatures of MAS-IPSP dissident. MAS-IPSP co-founder Lino Villca had founded the Movement for Sovereignty
Movement for Sovereignty
The Movement for Sovereignty is a leftist, indigenist Bolivian political party founded by dissidents of the Movement for Socialism . Its leader, and fourth-place candidate for Governor of La Paz department in the 2010 regional election is Lino Villca...
(MPS), which contested the elections. Other former MAS-IPSP activists involved in founding the MPS include Óscar Chirinos, Miguel Machaca, and Rufo Calle.
Ideology
Morales has defined the 'socialism' in terms of communitarianismCommunitarianism
Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history.-Terminology:Though the term...
, stating in a 2003 interview that in the "ayllu
Ayllu
Ayllu is the traditional form of a community in the Andes, especially among Quechuas and Aymaras.Ayllus were the basic political and social units of pre-Inca and Inca life. These were essentially extended family groups but they could adopt non-related members, giving individual families more...
people live in community, with values such as solidarity and reciprocity'. Regarding the question of national identity, MAS-IPSP borrows discourse from the katarista
Katarismo
Katarism is a political tendency in Bolivia, named after the 18th-century indigenous leader Túpaj Katari. The katarista movement began to articulate itself publicly in the early 1970s, recovering a political identity of the Aymara people...
tradition and from the indigenous peoples' movement in eastern Bolivia, criticizing the modern nation state as a failed construct of 'internal colonialism' and inherently racist. Thus the movement seeks to construct a plurinational state based on autonomies of the indigenous peoples. In the MAS-IPSP discourse 'nation' and 'people' are often equated, whilst the oligarchy is portrayed as anti-national.
However, the katarista discourse was not a feature of the ideological profile of the IPSP at the time of its foundation. IPSP surged as a movement of the peasantry, amongst colonizers and coca growers. The katarista discourse was absorbed later, largely borrowed from Félipe Quispe's rhetoric from then struggles of 2000. However MAS-IPSP never went as far as to create an exclusively indigenous political profile (as Quispe), and Morales retained that an alliance with non-indigenous actors and the middle classes was a necessity. The seventh congress of MAS-IPSP, held in January 2009, approved a document titled "Communitarian socialism to liberate Bolivia from the colonial state", envisioning the path of a 'cultural and democratic revolution' in Bolivia.
MAS-IPSP itself does not have an ideological centre, and the different constituent movements belong to slightly different trends of thought. Within the MAS-IPSP fold Marxists, social democrats, anarchist, including virulently anti-communist strands are found. In the words of Alvaro García Linera, the political character of MAS-IPSP has evolved through the combination of "an ecclectic indianism and the critical and self-critical traditions of the intellectual leftwing that began to Indianize Marxism from the 1980s and onwards". According to García Linera, a 'flexible indianism' enabled MAS-IPSP to gather support from a variety of sectors. García Linera characterizes MAS-IPSP as 'centre-left
Centre-left
Centre-left is a political term that describes individuals, political parties or organisations such as think tanks whose ideology lies between the centre and the left on the left-right spectrum...
', stating that the goal of the movement is the establishment of a form of 'Andean capitalism'. In the findings of Latinobarómetro
Latinobarómetro
Latinobarómetro Corporation is a private non-profit organization, based in Providencia, Chile. It is responsible for carrying out Latinobarómetro, an annual public opinion survey that involves some 19,000 interviews in 18 Latin American countries, representing more than 400 million people...
surveys until 2002, MAS voters identified themselves as 2.7 of a scale between 0 and 10 (in which 0 represented the far left and 10 represented the far right).
According to Marta Harnecker
Marta Harnecker
Marta Harnecker is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist, journalist and activist. Harnecker, a descendant of Austrian immigrants, was a Roman Catholic in her childhood. She visited Cuba in 1960-Early life:...
and Federico Fuentes MAS-IPSP represents a 'new indigenous nationalism' based on two sets of historical memories, that of the peasant movement (represented through CSUTCB) and that of the indigenous movement (represented through CIDOB), and combining elements of indigenismo, nationalism and 'miners' Marxism'.Harnecker, Marta
Marta Harnecker
Marta Harnecker is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist, journalist and activist. Harnecker, a descendant of Austrian immigrants, was a Roman Catholic in her childhood. She visited Cuba in 1960-Early life:...
. MAS-IPSP: Instrumento político que surge de los movimientos sociales. p. 38
According to Carlos Toranzo Roca, the politics of MAS-IPSP is largely a continuation of the traditional Latin American populism, which in Bolivia is rooted in the 1952 revolution. Key elements of this feature is, according to Toranzo Roca, clientelistic relations of distribution combined with anti-imperialist and nationalist discourse.
Organization
IPSP was founded as a 'political instrument', an organization distinct from the traditional political parties. Hervé do Alto defines the organization as both a political party and a federation of social movements at the same time.Leadership
The National Leadership (Dirección Nacional, DN) of MAS-IPSP is composed of representatives of the constituent organizations affiliated to MAS-IPSP. It is more of a loose coordination body rather than a party leadership in the traditional sense. Notably MAS-IPSP has not been institutionally consolidated in the way the Workers Party (PT) in BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
has developed, which also emerged as a political vehicle of social movements.
Clause 42 of the Organic Bylaws of MAS-IPSP stipulated that candidates in national and local elections should be elected through direct vote at assemblies. The majority of the MAS-IPSP candidatures in the 1999 and 2002 elections were selected through this method. However some candidates in the 2002 and 2005 elections were directly appointed by Morales.
Member organizations
The founding member organizations of MAS-IPSP are CSUTCB, CSCB, the Bartolina Sisa federation. At the sixth MAS-IPSP congress, held in November 2006, four new organizations were admitted as members of MAS-IPSP; Confederación Nacional de Maestros Rurales, Confederación de Gremiales de Bolivia, Confederación Nacional de Rentistas y Jubilados and Confederación Nacional de la Micro y Pequeña Empresa (Conamype).The seventh congress of MAS-IPSP was held January 10–12, 2009. At this congress two organizations were included as new members of MAS-IPSP; the National Federation of Mining Cooperatives (Fencomin, which claims a membership of around 40,000) and the Regional Workers Centre (COR) from El Alto
El Alto
At one time merely a suburb of adjacent La Paz, Bolivia, on the Altiplano highlands, the city of El Alto is today one of Bolivia's largest and fastest-growing urban centers. As of the 2001 census, the population was 649,958. In 2010, the population may be nearly 900,000, or more. The city contains...
. The Bolivian Workers' Center
Bolivian Workers' Center
The Bolivian Workers' Center is the chief trade union federation in Bolivia. It was founded in 1952 following the national revolution that brought the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement to power. The most important affiliate of the COB was the Union Federation of Bolivian Mine Workers...
(COB) and the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu
National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu
The National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu is a confederation of traditional governing bodies of Quechua-, Aymara- and Uru-speaking highland indigenous communities in the departments of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Tarija, Bolivia...
(CONAMAQ) are not part of MAS-IPSP, but supportive of the government.
Coalition organizations
The MAS-IPSP ran a joint electoral slate with the Without Fear MovementWithout Fear Movement
Without Fear Movement is a Progressive political party in Bolivia. MSM was founded on March 1, 1999.The leader of the party, Juan del Granado, has been mayor of La Paz since 2000...
(MSM) in the 2009 national elections. Shortly afterward, Evo Morales publicly broke with the MSM and its representatives in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly now form an independent block.
The three founding organizations of the MAS-IPSP are joined by CONAMAQ and the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB) in the Pact of Unity
Pact of Unity
The Pact of Unity is an evolving national alliance of Bolivian grassroots organizations in support of indigenous and agrarian rights, land reform, the rewriting of the 1967 constitution through a Constituent Assembly, and a left-indigenous transformation of the Bolivian state...
; this group has included other organizations in the past.
A larger alliance, the National Coordination for Change
National Coordination for Change
The National Coordination for Change is a Bolivian political coordination of social movements aligned with the governing Movement for Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples . It was founded on 22 January 2007, during the Constituent Assembly of 2006-2007...
(CONALCAM) was formed during the Bolivian Constituent Assembly, and includes MAS-IPSP executive and legislative politicians as well as social movement organizations.