…Yes, But Can They Govern?

Another reflection on the coming elections.

In the coming weeks, as the various parties begin to solidify the political bases with which they will march towards December 4, much of the writing and attention will be devoted to who can win. As the MAS shores up its prospects, here is the harder question being asked by many MAS supporters behind closed doors: Could MAS, if it did win, actually govern?

To be sure, there is a lot of distance between where we are and the event of an actual Evo Morales presidency, but the question is an important one.

We know that “Tuto” Quiroga can govern. He did for a year. We also know pretty much how he will govern. Expect an economic policy tilted full scale toward foreign corporations and the desires of the US Embassy. Expect a “mano duro” (i.e. repression) against any large scale civil disobedience or highway blockades. Expect to see the apparatus of Bolivian government placed into the hands of the same basic elite that finds its way into most “traditional party” governments here.

Evo and MAS, on the other hand, is much more of a leap into the great unknown. The MAS runs a few small towns here and there in more rural areas. But this is not Brazil, Lula, and the Workers Party (PT). There, before Lula captured the presidency, the PT ran some sizeable city and state governments and got the work of governance under their belt before heading the nation. Not so with MAS.

There is a good deal of talk among strong MAS supporters about Evo and MAS being unprepared to actually run the country. There are also some local stories that aren’t too pretty. This weekend I ran into an old friend of mine, an elderly woman from the small town adjacent to Cochabamba, Tiquipaya, a place where she was born and has lived all her life. Until the last city elections, their mayor was a well-liked local doctor who also gave (and still gives, she says) free medical care on the weekends. She says that he did a lot for they city but was ousted in a wave of local MAS organizing that wanted to run the small town itself. Now she says the new Mayor doesn’t listen, mostly talks on his cell phone when people try to talk to him, and my friend the little old lady with Coke bottle glasses isn’t happy.

On the natural she should be a MAS supporter but her animosity isn’t ideological, but born of experience.

I have worked in government and the task of governance is not easy. It involves identifying problems, analyzing solutions, forging compromises, and actually figuring out how to get things done over the hurdles of corruption, incompetence and bad luck. So in additions to the high speed campaigning underway here there is a parallel move by some “professional” people on the left here to sort out how MAS might actually put together a government should it have the chance come January. It is not an enviable task.