The blatant lies and hypocrisy of the US have been exposed with the publication of a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This shows there was no fraud in Bolivia’s presidential election last October.
A recent article in The Canary – which can be read in full here – argues that the real fraud has actually been committed by the Trump administration. The notion that the US intervenes in countries around the world to promote ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’ or ‘freedom’ has once again been exposed as a total sham. In Bolivia, democracy has been overturned with the backing and material support of the US government, because the people elected the ‘wrong’ president.
The truth is that Evo Morales in the legitimate elected President of Bolivia. He won the election in October 2019 by a large margin in a free and fair contest.
Following the US-backed coup on 10 November 2019, Bolivia is now governed by an ultra-right-wing, racist dictator – Jeanine Añez.
New elections have been scheduled for 3 May 2020. They are being organised by electoral authorities chosen by the Bolivian dictatorship; so the conditions for free and fair elections are severely compromised. The US and Bolivia’s right wing are hoping to use these elections to claim some democratic credentials for governing the country. The problem that they face, however, is that – despite intense political intimidation, violence, and persecution – the enduring popularity of Morales and his MAS party continues. The MAS presidential candidate Luis Arce, for example, leads the polls, with one of the latest putting him at around 32%. Arce is himself under “investigation” and could be arbitrarily banned from standing in the election by the illegitimate Bolivian regime at any time.
The false accusation of electoral fraud served as a pretext for the execution of a highly sophisticated, meticulously planned, and well-resourced coup in Bolivia. The coup represents an important victory for US foreign policy in Latin America and a blow to all progressive forces in the region. The US has a history of using deception to influence public opinion in order to ‘soften it up’ ahead of US interventions. A notorious example of this approach was the US and UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, where the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was used as a pretext for a bloody conflict that led to over a million deaths.
The people of Bolivia are fighting on for their independence and self-determination. They need international solidarity, and for the truth of the despicable role that the US administration has played in overturning their democratic elections to be widely exposed.
Read the full article on The Canary: ‘New study reveals that US-backed coup in Bolivia was based on lies.’ The article was first published on Tuesday 3rd March 2020.