People's Referendum challenges government IN THE LAST issue of International Viewpoint Charles Andre Udry described the revival of the mass movement in Bolivia and the attack of the government's repressive forces on a march of thousands of miners, their wives and children, and thousands of other working people on La Paz.
The following article from Bandera Socialista, the paper of the Bolivian section of the Fourth International, comments on an action that represented a turning point in the Bolivian political situation.
with a fascist ideology.
The People's Referendum confirms our judgement. The episodic majority of the MNR-ADN went up in smoke. The intermediate layers, hard-hit by the crisis and cheated by the UDP, voted for the ADN, together with the oligarchy of big ranchers, industrialists and exporters. The bourgeois sectors, afraid of immediate social warfare, as well as the welloff petty bourgeoisie and popular sectors without a political instrument of their own and without alternatives, voted for the MNR. Today, the masses have abandoned those candidates. Those who called for a tactical way to stop Banzer are ashamed of themselves today.
Now, there is no longer any room for confusion. The "lesser evil" and the "greater evil" have united together in government to apply a policy harmful to the interests of the social sectors that supported them in 1985. The supporters of Paz Estenssoro and Banzer are seething today
The People's Referendum held on July 25 by the Bolivian Confederation of Labor (COB), revealed a change in the attitude of the masses. In the elections of July 14, 1985, the people's frustration with the popular front] government of the UDP had led intermediate sectors to vote for the Banzerite right or the so-called lesser evil of the National Revolutionary Movement [MR - old populist formation which has evolved far to the right].
For a year, this electoral victory of the right was touted as a turnabout by the Bolivian masses, who were supposed to have abandoned their leftist traditions. Paz Estenssoro and Banzer claimed to represent the majority and used this to justify and their economic and political plans.
The People's Referendum put an end to this illusion of the 1985 elections, reducing the right to its real proportions, a tiny minority without a social base. According to the results published in the Cochabamba Los Tiempos, 71 per cent of the population over 18 years of age voted. Of these, 98.3 percent voted against the MNR-ADN government, against the New Economic Policy, and rejected the foreign debt and the new tax law. The percentage of those who voted on July 14, 1986 was much smaller. According to the INE, the number qualified to vote was 2,931,100. Only 1,729,365 actually voted. Blank and invalid votes numbered 224,309. Thus, the right and the "legal left" shared 1,504,056 votes, representing about half of the 1985 electorate.
The division of this half of the potential vote was 27 per cent for Paz Estenssoro and 28 per cent for Banzer. These percentages scored by 12 the right were completely discredited by the results of the People's Referendum.
In summing up the results of the 1985 elections, our party maintained that even in a context in which half of the electorate abstained, the victory of Banzer and Paz Estenssoro had only an episodic character. We said that this vote in no way represented the consolidation of a social current Bolivian miners (DR)
soro and banzer are seening today with frustration and bitterness and trying to move closer to the workers' and peasants' movement. Anti-government demonstrations This mood has been swelling the big civic mobilizations in Oruro, Potosi, Cochabamba, Beni and even Santa Cruz [a traditionally right-wing stronghold]. For example, the mining policy, decentralizing COMIBOL [the state mining corporation], shutting down mines and firing thousands of miners is virtually wiping out a major market. The impact is being felt from the Beni ranchers, who cannot sell their meat, to the Cochabama peasants who have nowhere to take their lettuce, carrots, potatoes, and so on. It includes also the small garment-makers and shoe-makers, as well as the noodle producers who had a steady flow of customers in the mining towns. By showing the change in the position of the middle and popular strata which have now turned away from supporting Banzer and Paz Estenssoro, the People's Referendum has deprived this government and parliament of legitimacy. The MNRADN government, as well as the parliamentary majority on which it is based, have ceased to be representative. With its negative vote in the People's Referendum, the people have shown that they represent only a tiny minority of oligarchs, exploiters and agents of imperialism.
This is the truth, and, holding it up, we have to lay out revolutionary tactics and strategy for mobilizing the masses.
International Viewpoint 10 November 1986
IRELAND