Under the motto “God, country, people”, Luis Fernando Camacho and Marco Pumari, the main leaders of the “civic movement” that The responsibility for the overthrow of Bolivian President Evo Morales is attributed, agreed to run together in the elections next May. Camacho will aspire to the presidency and Pumari, to the vice presidency. As both lack a party, they opened up to the possibility of being nominated “for any type of alliance, citizen movement or political party, prior mutual consensus.” Several smaller political stores had already lent themselves to give legal form to the candidacy of the “winners of Evo”.
Camacho and Pumari called to form a single front against the previous “narcogovernment” and for a new State “without racism, without resentment, without historical hatreds or non-existent ghosts, created in the imaginary of the ideologues of the MAS (Movement to Socialism)” , such as “the east-west, country-city or left-right division.”
At the same time, they vetoed the participation in their front of the “traditional politicians who have betrayed the good faith of the citizens, expressed in the vote, or who have colluded with the narco-government. They will have no place. ” They alluded to political opposition leaders during the 14 years of the Morales Government, such as Carlos Mesa and Samuel Doria Medina, who prepare their own nominations for the upcoming elections. Mesa and Doria Medina propose to overcome social polarization and reconcile the different sides with center and more moderate candidates in their criticism of the country’s immediate past.
Camacho and Pumari scored well, separately, in the voting intention polls of recent weeks, surpassing the other opponents of Morales, but unable to place themselves above the MAS, which will define its candidates on January 19. The polls individually measured civic leaders because the first political approach between them had ended in a thunderous failure. In early December, Camacho said he would not go to the elections with Pumari and then released the audio of a conversation with him, in which he criticized him for asking him, in exchange for his support, $ 250,000 and control of the Customs Office of Potosí, the region from which Pumari is a native. He did not deny having had this conversation, but said he wanted the money to finance his election campaign and that the nomination of a civic representative in the direction of the regional Customs was a “vindication of the people of Potosí.” He accused Camacho of being the one who recorded it, something he denied.
That fracture caused the concern of certain economic and social elites who believe that only Camacho and Pumari together can prevent the MAS from throwing its head again. In the campaign launch document, the two politicians apologized “for all the mistakes we have made and we express our commitment and commitment not to repeat them.”
Others actors of the mobilization against Evo Morales, like Waldo Albarracín, rector of the public university of La Paz, criticized the leaders of the civic committees for “taking advantage of these charges, which should be sacred, for jumping to the electoral candidacies” and for wanting to “take over a victory that belongs to all the Bolivian people. “
Luis Fernando Camacho, 40, called “Macho Camacho” by his followers, comes from the business elite of Santa Cruz, the most prosperous and less indigenous region of the country that has permanently challenged the leadership of the political capital, La Paz. He is a fervent Catholic, a radical opponent of Morales and, like many Cruzans, a supporter of introducing federalism into the country (a subject he hasn’t mentioned in recent times). He has placed several of his relatives and employees of his companies in the Government of Jeanine Añez.
Marco Pumari, meanwhile, is 38 years old and directs the middle classes of the city of Potosí, who do not consider themselves indigenous; Potosí is much poorer than Santa Cruz, but it is also prone to federalism, because it feels historically abandoned by the governments of La Paz. Pumari and his “potosinos civic” also have representatives in the provisional Government.
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