…and Now the Other Side

Last week here in Cochabamba it was Manfred and the middle class' turn to occupy the streets of Cochabamba. Today MAS and some of its allied social movements take a turn. A very loud, very large snake of people is just finishing its way past our office window here – thousands, a size that easily rivals the Manfred event.

What was different?

Last week's look: solidly middle class
This week's look: solidly campesino.

Last week's slogan of choice: "Democracy = 2/3"
This week's slogan of choice: "Prosecute Manfred for corruption"

What can we learn from all of this?

First, in Cochabamba (and I am only talking about Cochabamba here) both sides in the emerging Evo vs. Manfred battle can turn out crowds on short notice. Second, neither side is proposing any sort of reasonable compromise to the 2/3 uproar, nor is anyone else at this point from what I can tell. Third, both Manfred and Evo are playing fire with the political bases that put them where they are.

Captain Manfred is governor of Cochabamba not just because he carried the urban middle class but because he made real inroads with poor and rural voters. He's going to start ticking them off after months of working very hard to not tick anyone off. Evo is president because thousands and thousands of middle class urban voters put an X next to his name a year ago, ballooning his natural base among the rural and the impoverished to a historic majority. Talk to some of them now and it is safe to say that Evo has ticked them off.

Somewhere buried in this debate there surely is an argument over principle. The "ifs" and "whens" of supermajorities (the 2/3 demand at the Constituent Assembly) were debated when I studied political science in college thirty years ago and they'll be debated in political science courses thirty years from now. But, on all sides, this is about power, not principle.

That said, the fact that so many people are so invested in these issues here is a great thing. It is called democracy. If only people in the US had been so publicly invested in the run up to the Iraq War, that quagmire might not be.

A Note: Ya basta, enough of politics for a while. Even the people in the streets will soon take a break for the holidays. So, tomorrow we bring you a Democracy Center Holiday Special Blog: Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Don't miss it!!