The insanity just went up a notch

03.06.2005

It's not yet official (and it could be a populist stunt, though I doubt it), but Mesa resigned the Bolivian presidency. He's sending his resignation letter to parliament tomorrow morning. Apparently, he too's fed up w/ trying to govern the country; his TV announcement had some vitriol against Evo & others.

Who knows what this means. Since there's no current vice president, the next up on the line of succession is Hormando Vaca Díez (MIR, Santa Cruz), president of the Senate. I'm sure he's looking forward to his chance. If he steps down, the next up is Mario Cossío (MNR, Tarija), president of the House of Deputies.

Good job, FEJUVE. Congratulations, Evo. Let's ensure Bolivia dies a painful, drawn out suicide.

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PREDICTION: No matter what happens, this strengthens autonomista demands from Santa Cruz (and other media luna departments). Unlike the paceño Mesa, Vaca Díez & Cossío are certainly more sympathetic to autonomista demands (especially Cossío). Once again, the lack of strategic vision of altiplano & cocalero leaders astonishes me.

UNRELATED: Tomorrow afternoon I run my first batch of panel estimators after rebuilding my electoral dataset for use w/ STATA. Because, you know, it's nice to pretend that analysis of Bolivian election data is still somehow important & I should care about it.

UPDATE 1: Lots more at Barrio Flores, including pictures of "spontaneous" protests in Mesa's support (how spontaneous, one never knows).

UPDATE 2: I just read over Mesa's speech. If you understand Spanish, I highly recommend it. He's often come out to give little "educative" lectures, where he tries to explain basic realities & the laws of causality. This is, perhaps, his sharpest yet — and it just may save his presidency (since parliament has the option to vote to reject his offer of resignation). The little barbs thrown against NGOs that express "solidarity" w/ the people of El Alto but sit at home (and drink water) in the comfort of Stockholm & Paris was priceless.

Posted by Miguel at 11:57 PM

Comments

I don't blame him for wanting to resign. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't political environment.

Now, let me take this long cool sip of municipal water.

Posted by: j.scott barnard at March 7, 2005 07:20 AM