Exactly How Much Attention Does this Man Need?

Cochabamba's governor, Manfred Reyes Villa, apparently feeling left out of the current political turmoil in Bolivia, has returned to the recipe that won him so much national attention in January – provoke the opposition. On Sunday, Reyes Villa called for the resignation of President Evo Morales, setting off a new firestorm of local threats and counter-threats.

Bear in mind that this is the same Manfred Reyes Villa who, in January when faced with demands for his resignation, traveled around the world to trumpet the democratic principle that legitimately elected leaders should not be cowed out of office before serving their full term. Morales was elected by a much higher vote than Manfred in 2005, and a vote that was nationwide.

What did other political actors around the country have to say about Manfred's call for Morales' resignation?

Jorge Quiroga, not known as a Morales backer, called the governor's comments, "unfortunate and not very smart." The Mayor of La Paz, Juan Del Granado, called Reyes Villa's comments racist, seditious, and criminal. A leader of the conservative UN party also called Reyes Villa's comments irresponsible and seditious. Cochabamba's Mayor made similar declarations and Defensor del Pueblo Waldo Albarracin reminded Reyes Villa of his January declarations about respecting the legitimacy of elections.

Morales' spokesman Alex Contreras predictably denounced the governor, with the usual reminders of his role in the dictatorship of Luis Garcia Meza and his alliance with Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada during the ex-president's repressive last six months in office.

Reyes Villa's reaction to all this: the governor repeated his call for Morales' resignation.

A Recipe for Conflict

Readers will recall that last January, Reyes Villa set the original spark of citywide violence, by abandoning his practice of ribbon cutting to jump into the national political fray, declaring that he would organize a re-vote on the autonomy issue in Cochabamba (something he is not constitutionally authorized to do), just six months after the proposal was soundly rejected by voters here. MAS backers and others foolishly took the bait, calling for Reyes Villa to resign and staging a mass blockade of the city that included torching the governor's office. When Reyes Villa backers broke through police lines on January 11, inciting a violent clash with those demanding his resignation, three men were killed and many other people badly wounded.

In the end Reyes Villa withdrew his demand for a re-vote on autonomy and the crowds demanding his resignation retreated from the city center. Nevertheless, the move by Reyes Villa in January accomplished what he most likely intended. The former and future Presidential candidate moved himself from the margins of the national political debate to the center of it, becoming a leading opposition figure to Morales.

Then political events pushed Cochabamba's governor back to the political margins. A compromise was reached on the conflictive 2/3 vote issue before the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly actually started to meet and get some work done on the drafting a new constitution. Then it was PODEMOS turn to try to find an issue that could throw a monkey wrench into the process and came up with the creative proposal to move the nation's capital to Sucre from La Paz.

Once again national politics began to boil and the "Morales Project" seemed stopped in its tracks, but where did that leave Manfred Reyes Villa – governor of a department divided and a man, once again, left out of the national equation. So once more, Manfred is trying the strategy that worked so well before – try to goad militant MAS backers into a battle so that he can put on the mantle of Mr. Opposition.

A Recipe for Peace

First, let's be clear. Manfred Reyes Villa has the right to say anything he wants, no matter how stupid. If he wants to step in front of a battery of microphones and declare that the government should conduct its business in its underwear, let him go ahead and do it. I am a believer in free speech. I wrote in January that it was a mistake to call for his resignation then and I still think the same now.

The issue is not Manfred's new declaration but how his adversaries respond to it, and here they have an opportunity to learn something valuable from January – this time don't take the bait. Here is what I really wish MAS and Morales would say:

Manfred Reyes is a foolish man who thinks that at a moment of national political tension, the best thing a leader can do is try to create more of it. He may be that stupid but we are not and neither are the people of Cochabamba. As far as we are concerned, Bon Bom is free to say any stupid thing he wants.

Oh yes, maybe someone can ask him when he is going to release that evidence he said he had in hand in March that Morales had spies following him around. Or perhaps reporters might want to ask the governor when that delegation from Human Rights Watch is coming to Cochabamba; the one he declared was on its way here last January.

Or better yet, just ignore Manfred Reyes Villa altogether. That will drive him nuts.