Between government manipulations and institutional anomie Is ADEPCOCA in risk of collapse?

This is part four of a series written by Alison Spedding Pallet: 1. 'If the MAS government is a coca growers’ government, why are the Yungas coca growers against it?' 2. 'Dirty Deals in Bolivia: The continued war on ADEPCOCA'  3. New Tactics from a divided MAS

The renewal began the next day first thing in the morning, without the ‘technical report’ with which the inauguration had been planned the day before: nobody wanted to waste any more time. I deduce that part of this report would have had to do with the type of ink and pens necessary to stamp and sign on PVC,6 because within a few days complaints began to come in about cards where the ink had spread out in blotches on all sides, leaving them illegible. After this, similar complaints appeared from other Regionals who had not previously mentioned any problem. (This was very possibly because the fresh cards were generally collected by their Communal Committee, for posterior distribution in a community meeting together with the collection of fines. Only after hearing from Chulumani did they start to look through them). A couple of communities made a private deal with Vela to come and renew them with a digital signature, paying up separately, while in the general renewal each person had to pay 20 Bolivianos for the Departmental, plus 5 for their Regional and 5 for their Communal. Almost all the 40.000 associates renewed with Vela, and Lizette’s directory has not so far explained where this money went. Also, the blotched and illegible cards have not yet been validated everyone continues with the previous issue. The grass roots demand a renewal without further cost to them, and add that the Departmental should stump up the cost because they were responsible for hiring an incompetent. Lizette said that Regional Chulumani would have to present a formal accusation and pay the legal costs. In fact, by this time it was obvious that she had very poor relations with most of the other members, and in particular with Salazar.

Almost a month later, the card renewal arrived in Asunta, a region with various ‘red zones’, where coca cultivation is not permitted. Here producers who have cards issued by Flores and Alanes, have formed a parallel Regional (and a parallel Federation). They provoked violent clashes in the town of Asunta aiming to impede the renewal of the ‘organic’ cards. In consequence, squads of the anti-riot police UTOP arrived, supposedly at the request of Lizette in connivance with the MAS mayor of Asunta, and she declared that the renewal was suspended, while Freddy Quispe and Salazar ordered it to go ahead, which it did without further problems. Relations between the directory members further degenerated until, early in September, Lizette burst into a room where Freddy Quispe was sitting with Salazar and the Treasurer, and started punching Salazar, accusing him of having leaked certain information which had somehow led the La Paz chief of police to come to her house along with the Viceminister to order her to suspend the renewal in Asunta. He had supposedly threatened to kidnap her son and ‘sow’ a couple of dead bodies in Asunta so as to send her to prison. This was taken as definitive proof that Lizette was not fit to occupy her position and demands arose that she should resign; many said that the whole directory should resign, since even those members who had not accompanied Lizette personally in her questionable actions had not been capable of reasoning with her in order to arrive at better decisions –the role which Freddy Quispe in particular was expected to fulfill.7

This directory had to face another problem which was not of their making: the proposal, originating from Coripata, to obtain full legal status for ADEPCOCA, with the argument that it does not actually possess an institutional document, at least at a fully valid level. The argument is that when ADEPCOCA was founded, around 1985, a ‘Process Commission’ with four members was named to procure this legalization. They did not advance rapidly and finally, in 1989, another group staged what the first now call a ‘coup’ and named themselves the directory of ADEPCOCA. According to the founders this was not legal and no one is really an associate of ADEPCOCA, even now. It would seem that the octogenarian Honorato Atto, the only survivor of the original four, after a near death experience decided that he did not want to go to the grave without having fulfilled his original promise, and began to collect signatures and subscriptions of 200 Bolivianos per person to finally obtain an up to date legal registration. Others consider that Honorato Atto is a mere figurehead8 and the real operators of this proposal are another faction in Coripata, in particular Agustín Mamani, ex adviser of the Constituent Assembly in 2008, and possessed of a long demagogic trajectory in the region. The process of registration requires presenting a Statute and Internal Rules, to be approved by the departmental government, in this case in La Paz. The actual Statute of ADEPCOCA dates from 1989, when it only had a few hundred members, all of them in and around Coripata, and is designed for that number of persons and the technology of the time (for instance, the Secretary of Press and Propaganda ought to ‘elaborate a wall newspaper’ to inform the members!). The Legal Market in La Paz did not then exist, neither did the Regional Committees (which first appeared solely to administer the sale of coca in the different spaces of the Market), nor the Communal Committees. None of these figure in the Statute. Neither does it indicate where the elections of the directory should take place, nor the modality, nor even the requirements to be a candidate for the leadership .

Since 1989, ADEPCOCA has proceeded on the basis of decisions taken in the heat of the moment; it has established weekly meetings ( fortnightly, since 2024) in La Paz between the Departmental leadership and the Regionals. There has never been a debate and much less any attempt to establish rules on what the Departmental can decide just among themselves; or what they can decide in consultation with the Regional leaderships; nor on what these two instances can propose, but not decide until debated in local reunions with the grass roots in the provinces. Secondly, over time more and more Regionals have been created, or better said, established by fission, because each new Regional represents a group of associates formerly part of another, larger Regional. Each new creation has responded to particular circumstances, often due to momentary disgust with the then leadership of their Regional, or transitory disputes over money and access to the top posts. The result is that at present there are 17 Regionals, with extremely varied levels of membership:

Notwithstanding, each Regional has the same rights to representation in the Departmental and the same vote in the weekly or fortnightly meetings, where a decision is taken as valid if a ‘majority of the Regionals’ have voted for it, although this majority may consist principally of Regionals with few associates. On top of this, the (bi)weekly meetings may at times take place in the main hall on the top floor of the Market, with open access to leaders from all levels and even the grass roots in general. Usually, however, these meetings take place ‘behind closed doors’ in the directory’s small meeting room and are limited to the Regionals (and some other determined individuals, usually well known ex leaders from whatever level). This leads to generalized suspicion that the decisions in this context are ‘cooked’ one way or another, and during Lizette’s tenure, those Regionals who continued to support her in whatever situation were generally considered to have been bought off, either with personal (monetary) favours or discretionary donatives to their Regionals, such as financial aid for a seriously ill associate - another topic which is not regulated at all in the present Statute. All these elements – which I group under the title of ‘institutional anomie’ - including the existing dispositions for administrative personnel who ought to manage the finances, clamour for an overarching reform, but Agustín Mamani insisted ‘We are not going to touch even a comma of the Statute!’ He even proposed that the Regionals and the Communal Committees ought to ‘disappear’ since they are not in the actual Statute.

In any case, to acquire a legal status the Statute of the organization in question needs to include a reference to certain laws, in particular Law 438 (prohibiting violence against women) and 045 (prohibiting any form of discrimination). The faction supporting the Honorato Atto initiative received a bucket of cold water when a representative of the departmental government informed them about these legal requirements and since then seems to have lost all steam. However, fearing that this group would get ahead of them and – as they claimed – appear as the legal leadership of ADEPCOCA, Lizette decided to update the documents she had, and prepared a ‘reformed’ version of the Statute, which did not resolve any of the many absences or contradictions present, being limited only to the inclusion of said requirements, with the aim of just getting the legal status first and not responding to the conflicts due to the vacuums in the Statute. Almost nobody cared about this (indeed, I am not sure how many people apart from me have even read the ‘reformed’ document): the problem was that, once again, she did this without announcing it to the associates and much less presenting the document to be ‘socialized’ in the provinces. Instead, she just invented minutes of a supposed ‘assembly of associates’ (the maximum instance in the Statute) which would have approved her document, and supported this with a table of signatures of various Regional Presidents and some other ‘representatives’ cited according to their province. One of these Presidents told me that he knew nothing of the reform and he had just signed an ‘attendance list’, although this is not the norm in peasant organizations (the proof of attendance is to sign and stamp the minutes of the meeting or other event in question). Whether or not this is true – those who had signed were severely criticized from all sides – this authoritarian procedure was the last straw, even for those who until then had argued that everyone makes mistakes and we should let Lizette’s directory carry on, just controlling them to make sure that they did better. Lizette then withdrew the process she had presented (which was no longer urgent due to the collapse of the Atto initiative), but it was too late to overcome the massive rejection of her leadership.

A general assembly of associates was called in Huancane (Sud Yungas) for the 7th October 2024. When not in La Paz, these assemblies are usually called either in Coripata or in Chulumani; the option for Huancane was seen as another of Lizette’s maneuvers, since this Regional was one of the few that still supported her. Following the accustomed format, after calling the attendance list and reading the order of the day, ‘correspondence’ is read out: in this case it consisted almost entirely of resolutions supporting Lizette and her directory, rejected with shouts by the associates gathered in the football field, other interventions demanding that they resign, which were cheered, and two demanding that they be named as new Regionals, one from Pastopata and the other from Siguani Grande, a dissident sector in Asunta, which were likewise massively rejected. Next in the order of the day was the directory’s report of its activities, but the shouts demanding the entire leadership to resign were such that first of all Freddy Quispe took the microphone and resigned, after him Lizette and then the rest, some following the correct format in these organizations where one does not resign personally but ‘puts his/her post in disposition’ for those who voted them in to decide whether they have to go or can carry on. The Treasurer (Roberto Villca, Regional Llojeta) declared before resigning that, unlike Machicado, they were leaving a sum of 600.000 Bolivianos in the cash box. They then left the platform. The next act was to name an Ad Hoc Committee to take over ADEPCOCA until the next elections. Regional Huancane as ‘host’ took the microphone and began to call representatives of the Regionals to organize this. For some reason, although they had been rejected, he called for a representative of Pastopata. The rest protested furiously against this and Pastopata’s shock troops – together with some of those from Arapata, those who had done the same in Coripata in January, including Omar Quispe – sallied out and started a field battle throwing stones9 and dynamite the length of the football field. Many people fled, but many others – we are now totally used to these confrontations – just retired to a safe distance to watch till the combatants retired and we could resume the election of the Ad Hoc Committee, with conglomerations of those still present from each Regional until they named a representative. This was not free of argument, but eventually an acceptable group of representatives was formed and sworn in, ready to go off to La Paz the next day and take on the institution. Lizette had already legged off to the city in the ADEPCOCA official vehicle.

The Electoral Committee formed by part of the Ad Hoc group, headed by the representative of Asunta (Edgar Baustista,) announced that this time they would be strict and if a candidate did not fill all the requirements they would not enter in the election; their Regional would just have to wait and send someone along to fill up the lowest posts (this was what had happened to Huancané the previous time). Here I should clarify another aspect of elections in these organizations: while in urban trade unions, neighbours' associations (juntas de vecinos), even student centres in Bolivian universities, the competitors are ‘fronts’ who present an entire list from the head to the lowest post, in peasant organizations each territorial entity – community, Regional, Central and so on – puts up one candidate for the head post. The most voted wins, and the following positions are assigned (ideally) on the basis of the number of votes, although when the vote is by lifted hands (aclamación) it is not always clear who was the most voted, and almost impossible to order those who received a small number of votes. This structural problem underlies Freddy Quispe’s supposed reluctance to try and control Lizette: particularly when their votes were close to that of the winner, the second in command has motives for trying to undermine the winner and get them thrown out so as to step up and take over. Some do this openly, others underhand, but the correct procedure is to swallow their tears and work to support the winner’s administration, and this is how Freddy Quispe presented what for others was a pathetic lack of action. Another chronic problem of this form of election is what I call ‘blind localism’: my sector has a candidate and I will/have to support that candidate, even if he or she has a very weak proposal compared with those of other sectors. What matters is that my sector should get to be the head, not that it should be the person who has the most capacity or a better proposal. As we shall see, this had a critical influence in the problems of the candidate for Regional Chulumani.

So, the Electoral Committee prepared a draft list of requirements and sent it to be considered by Regional assemblies. In this at least they broke with Lizette’s practice of vertical impositions. Among the points some questioned – in the debate in Chulumani – were the requirement ‘born in Yungas’ – excluding those who have lived there for decades and have been very active in the organization, but were born elsewhere; this was one of the reasons why Coroico finally named Lizette, instead of a mature and very active male candidate who had been born in another province – and excluding anyone who at any time had been a government employee or candidate in national or local elections. I myself commented that having been a public servant or a candidate is not a lifelong stigma, and the norm in Bolivian trade union organizations is to demand that, if one wants to postulate for the leadership and is a public servant, they should resign from their post, or if it is a permanent one (generally in the police, and especially, teacher in public education; in the Altiplano a quantity of leaders are public school teachers) request that they be ‘declared in commission’, that is let off work during their period of leadership. This was not accepted, and much less my observations with respect to depositing property documents for real estate with a minimum value of 100.000 dollars. The idea behind this is that, if the leader ‘steals’ (one way or another cannot account for where the money has gone) from ADEPCOCA, the real estate will be confiscated to cover the lost money. ADEPCOCA is not the first social organization to have come up with this idea, but I told them about an equivalent case where, despite someone having run off with 100.000 Bolivianos, they could not execute the property title which the then President had deposited with them to get back the money: there is no legal basis for this. The only reaction was to lower the value of the property to 30.000 bolivianos (40 thousand Euro), arguing that very few yungueños have property with legal title which is worth even that much. So the election was launched with those requirements: the Regionals with option to present candidates had to name them and present their documents by 22nd November and the election would be on Monday 9th December. Here I will relate only what happened in Regional Chulumani, not only because I belong to it and was present in the events described, but because it was the Regional that – like Arapata in January – led to conflicts on the day of the elections.

In Chulumani (and so far as I know, in the other Regionals) candidates are named for each peasant Central and/or Subcentral of their Federation; although these are not formally part of the ‘organic structure’ of ADEPCOCA, they serve to group communities and organize representation. Each of these units has the right to present a candidate but are not obliged to do so. Of the 9 which belong to Regional Chulumani, this time only 4 put up candidates: Central Tagma, Central Ocobaya, Central San Bartolome and Subcentral Arcopan. I told the Regional President that they should carry out a secret ballot (known as ‘en urnas/ánforas’) but he claimed that the other four of his directory insisted that it should be by ‘queues’ (filas). This is an accepted modality in peasant elections: the candidates stand up front and those who support them queue up facing them to be counted. Among other things, given that this support is public, there is a heavy pressure to support the candidate from your community or sector or that your community has decided for, even if you personally think that he or she is a dismal prospect, whereas with the secret ballot you have the chance to vote for the one you really like without the rest knowing it. In favour of queues, the count is immediate and thus the result, whereas the secret ballot always takes time to count the papers and add up the result. However, a valid election by queues requires naming commissions to count each queue, who should be people who don’t belong to the sector whose queue they count, and these commissions should count all the queues at the same time; in occasions when one queue is very short and quickly counted, the commission then lets them go and they scatter, available to join another queue which is still being counted. When some or all of the queues are very long, it takes a lot of organization to maintain everyone in the place where they were first counted until the final result has been determined. Failure to organize an election by queues is the basis of the dissidence of Pastopata in Chulumani: before the count was even finished – and when one short queue had already dispersed, many of them tagging on to a long queue still being counted – the President of the Presidium (which directs congresses) of the Federation announced ‘Pastopata has won, I’ve seen it!’ because their queue was right in front of him. This election was annulled (2020), two weeks later another was carried out with secret vote and Pastopata lost; they claim ‘they stole the Federation from us’ and since then have not participated except with disruptive actions. This precedent should have warned the Regional to prepare very well for an election by queues, but whatever the reasons of those who insisted on this modality, they did not take the precautions necessary to avoid similar disorders.

A second problem was the candidate for Ocobaya: Cesar Apaza, famous for his abusive arrest and police mistreatment when he was on the Self Defense Committee of ADEPCOCA in 2022. For his brave actions at that time, many people consider him a hero. But during the lockdown in 2020, all travel and trade was forbidden except for foodstuffs and other basic goods. Coca was not on this list, although many Bolivians think it is a basic good on the lines of tea or coffee in other countries; for three months no one in Yungas could sell their coca and the economy was paralysed. Cesar was then Executive Secretary of the Chulumani Federation and as such was travelling with one of the few lorries which went out to bring foodstuffs. Several 50 pound bundles of coca were discovered concealed in the chassis of that lorry. Cesar insists that they were not his and the lorry owner had hidden them without his knowledge, but many people continue to believe that he was taking advantage of his post to take coca to the city and sell it when no one else could do this. Secondly, due to the enduring consequences of his police beating, he has a monthly salary from ADEPCOCA. Although it is only the minimum wage, most yungueños are peasants who have no fixed wage at all and consider that Cesar is a vividor (scrounger) who lives off ADEPCOCA. And finally, in 2021 he stood for Mayor in Chulumani – and lost, but this means that according to the requirements, having been a political candidate he cannot be a member of the ADEPCOCA directory. Notwithstanding, his supporters in Ocobaya insisted that he be their candidate, although many other activists and ex leaders tried to convince him that he should not accept and rather take advantage of the ample support he has throughout the three provinces to stand in future political elections.

On 15th November, the Electoral Committee arrived in Chulumani to oversee the election of the candidate for the Regional. The four candidates were presented and the Committee announced that Cesar was excluded on the basis of his mayoral candidacy. The Regional then announced that the election would be in the football field because there were too many people to form queues inside the building which is their seat. Another rule of the election is that every voter should show their coca producer’s card and it should be from Chulumani, not another Regional, but they made no attempt to control this. Cesar went down anyway, put up a poster with Ocobaya and his name, and people started to queue up there, the same as for the three authorized candidates; nor did the Regional order him to step down immediately since he had been excluded. Only when he saw that he did not really have much support beyond the fanatics from his Central, did he announce that he was resigning and went over to San Bartolome, followed by some of his people. The Regional started to count, but they only counted San Bartolome and then left off for no apparent reason. During this lapse, the Tagma candidate suddenly announced that he was resigning and would give his support to Arcopan. Some of the people in his queue then went over to Arcopan and others left in disgust, since they had turned up for him and not to be passed over like sheep to another candidate. Apart from that, various people had been seen in the Arcopan line who were associates of other Regionals, like Huancane or Coripata, or not even associates. There was no attempt before this to count how many people had queued initially for Tagma; the by now huge queue for Arcopan was counted, with many protests, which caused the President of the Regional to escape, while some women from Ocobaya beat up the Minutes Secretary, and the Vicepresident, who is from Arcopan, announced that their candidate, Imer Huanca, had won.

This was a curious candidacy: Imer Huanca works in heavy transport, where he has made a lot of money and owns luxurious houses in Chulumani and La Paz, apart from property in his community Naranjani. He had been an efficient leader in that community, but beyond that level (where it is obligatory to participate, although obviously some do so much better than others) he had never showed any interest in the Regional and Federation assemblies and hence, before he appeared as a candidate in this election, no one else knew who he was. Another of the requirements was to have taken part in the multiple mobilizations to recover the Coca Market in the two occasions when government sponsored parallels took it over, and no one had ever seen him there either. What was common knowledge was that he was being sponsored by the government as their ficha for this election, like Rimber Acuña for Arapata in January, and this time with better prospects, since (see table above), although Arapata has a good number of associates, Chulumani has many more and if his Regional lined up behind him he was a probable winner. However, Chulumani – at least as Regional – had always been ‘firm’ (against the government) and was not a good target, whereas Arapata has been and is severely divided with a significant part following the government line since at least 2018. The reason why Chulumani was chosen for the ficha this time was because the recently named Viceminister of Coca, Mateo Mamani, is from Chulumani and therefore was probably thought capable of lining them up. He is ex President of Regional Chulumani, but was thrown out in October 2023 for bad management; if he was chosen for the ministerial post, it is presumably for political loyalty and not because he is a capable operator, as recent events demonstrate. Imer Huanca also adopted the traditional tactic of buying votes: to one community he offered a bull as prize for their football championship, plus Christmas boxes at the end of the year, to another a set of football strips for their team – these are the cases of which I have personal proof, but I doubt that they are the only ones. My community was offered the bull and therefore queued up for him.

It was not possible to present public proof of these offers, nor of night time meetings in Huancane with Mateo Mamani, but Central San Bartolome presented an impugnation of the election based on the disorderly count and the participation of people not entitled to vote. The Electoral Commission (who had not been seen in the football field, but claimed to have observed the disorder from a street higher up) presented a report which also discarded the supposed result, and Chulumani was ordered to carry out a new election with secret vote. They were even given tolerance to present their candidate’s documents after the official closure date in order to give them time to carry out a valid election. First of all the ‘gang of four’ – as I call the leadership who disagreed with the President – called an assembly, and after much debate announced that it was sufficient that the Communal Committees should vote. There are 53 such committees in Chulumani; however only 16 were present at that time. They put their votes in a tiny box and were counted: 15 in favour of Imer Huanca and one in favour of new elections. The Departamental refused to accept this result, and finally on 29th November they held a full scale election with secret vote for the three candidates previously authorized. Imer Huanca won with 687 votes, followed by San Bartolome with 319 and Tagma with 170. However, the morning before the voting began was chaotic, since Imer went to the local radios to declare that, due to threats received, stonings and spray paintings of his houses in Chulumani and La Paz, and ‘getting involved with my family’ (his daughter was proved to be a functionary in the Ministry of the Presidency, and it is assumed that any leader with a family member who works for the government is with the party line, or will have to buckle down to it anyway, otherwise his family member will be sacked) he was resigning as candidate. In the Regional seat, we demanded that he express this in writing, which he eventually did. But he was on the voting paper; if people still voted for him, some argued that this would be null since he had resigned, even if he won; others shouted ‘Imer, Imer!’ and he finally announced that he would carry on as candidate and the election went ahead, with the indicated results accepted as valid.

The next stage in the electoral calendar was a written and oral examination for the candidates, scheduled for 2nd December. This was a complete novelty. One of the explanations for it was that another of Lizette’s errors was to have given producers’ cards to red zone communities, supposedly because she had not read the 2008 Convention between ADEPCOCA and the government, which establishes the green zone (coca cultivation permitted in some cases without limit, in others limited to one hectare per associate); yellow zone (up to one cato, in this case 50 metres by 50 per associate) and red zone (no coca at all, to be eradicated without compensation or complaint). It was argued that any leader should be fully informed about this, as well as the existing and previous legislation on coca (Laws 1008 and 906) and of course, the Statute of ADEPCOCA. I was a member of the tribunal named to establish the questions for this exam, which we prepared the day before. However, no one had considered the consequences of failing the exam, or what difference it would make who got a really good mark versus those who only just passed. They had all been elected in their Regionals, who would protest if they were excluded for failure. It occurred to some of the Electoral Committee that only the three with best marks should be allowed to compete for President, leaving the rest for inferior posts; others said that the exam should have been – and should be the next time round – applied to all the candidates in their Regionals, and only those who passed should be allowed to stand in the same Regional, thence in the Departmental. In any case, the exam was scheduled for the 2nd December at 9 AM. The tribunal and the candidates turned up, not so the Ad Hoc Committee, and meanwhile the exam room filled up with Regional leaders and other curious parties, who started to rant on about how their Regional didn’t have a representative on the tribunal who, it was assumed, would give top marks to their representatives whatever they answered, plus Coripata with a resolution arguing, as ever, that the election should not be held in La Paz but in Coripata because they are the founders, while several candidates announced that they would not take the exam (assumed by everyone else present that they thought they would fail anyhow; Daynor Choque, candidate for Coripata, continued cramming ferociously up to the last minute while the rest shouted and wailed). At long last it was determined that they would take the exam, but these would not be marked, only looked at by the tribunal, and the oral exam would just be transmitted by radio so that the associates could form their own opinion about who was best qualified.

That week was dedicated to campaigns for and against candidates and speculation about likely winners. The two most favoured were Daynor Choque, for Coripata, and Sixto Sullcata, for Inquisivi. Local media published surveys, one which indicated 66% support for Imer and another which did not include him (because of his resignation) but showed a virtual draw between Choque and Sullcata with around 25% each. MASistas in Chulumani insisted that Imer would be President, and some thought that the MAS is so well organized that they would order their supporters from all over to go to La Paz and vote for Imer instead of their own representatives (if they had them). It has to be said that the Electoral Committee was determined not to let the government ficha in by whatever means (that is, they acted in the opposite direction of Omar Quispe in January, although this does not make them more worthy of praise for impartiality) and if necessary would ‘look for the cat’s fifth foot’ (as they say in Bolivia) to invent an excuse to keep him out. Still others pointed to certain communities pro MAS or pro Imer who had their patron saint’s festival the day before (8th December, Virgin of the Conception: the infamous MASistas of Anacurí, and my own community among them) and would therefore be too drunk to travel to vote. Documents were published demonstrating that, before the failed national elections in 2019, Daynor had been President of the MAS Youth and his name had been proposed as the replacement (suplente) parliamentary candidate for that party in Yungas; supposedly he only went over to the ‘organic’ band out of sour grapes when he was finally not selected, and therefore was an undercover MAS ficha. Others pointed to the two years he spent in prison on false charges presented by the government, arguing that he would not return to the fold when that party had abused him in that way. More objectively – since the survey in favour of Huanca was not credible – the general panorama was one without a stand out candidate, and this scenario is a bad prospect for lifted hand elections; whoever is declared to be the winner, even if the Committee from their position on the platform (whence they have a panoramic view not available to those voting from the floor) have made a correct visual estimation of who had more votes and not a biased one, it is quite possible that those who have lost by a small margin will claim that they were the real winners and want to cause problems.

When the long awaited 9th finally arrived, there was a regular if not massive turn out in the street outside the Coca Market; most notable was the presence of Inquisivi, which due to its historical marginality in the organization (for decades they were not even considered for the Presidency and just allotted automatically the post of Permanent Secretary) normally arrived only in a small contingent. The event finally began around 11 AM, with the Committee’s report on income and outgoings and their complaints that Villca had not responded to their summons to explain where the money was, nor had Lizette returned the official vehicle, while they denounced various cases of overpricing in printed materials and others that she had bought. The assembly had little patience with this and demanded to get on with the presentation of candidates. Daynor Choque announced that he would reform the Statute, which was not in his written plan (by far the most extensive, although almost nobody bothers to read these documents), a demagogic move since Coripata is the sector which has blocked all previous mentions of reform; Sixto Sullcata got nervous, and declared ‘We carry on the same as for 40 thousand years!’ – instead of 40, causing massive cackles and, some said afterwards, reducing the votes he could have collected from other sectors without candidates. After the other six had spoken, Imer Huanca was finally announced, but not given the microphone; rather, the legal advisor Evelin Cossio, together with a notary public to verify the documents, finally opened his envelope and began to revise the papers one by one. She announced that he lacked one requirement – apparently he had not signed a formal expression that he was presenting the real estate guarantee, although his supporters claimed that he had presented the property documents – and would not therefore figure in the voting. It was suggested that Chulumani could later send a ‘complement’ (to occupy the most inferior post). His supporters, much less numerous than many had expected (or feared), expressed furious discontent, but the rest shouted ‘Elections, elections!’ and the voting began. After the others had been called one by one, the ‘huanquistas’ raised their hands shouting for Imer, but this was ignored, and Edgar Bautista proclaimed Daynor Choque as President followed by Sixto Sullcata as Vicepresident. At this point a couple of tear gas grenades flew from the other side of the street and landed beneath the platform, and then one or two more which landed lower down. Some of us were already retiring down the street and were joined by the rest fleeing in mass, although in an orderly way and not the stampede which took place in March 2018, the first time we got gassed out on that same street; since then we have got totally used to gas here, there and everywhere. We milled around in the Plaza del Maestro, observing on the other side people from Pastopata, others who had taken part in the clash in Huancane, and Imer supporters who were shouting and cheering, but they seemed to eventually decide that their numbers were too small to stage another assault.

Evelin Cossio and her companions opted to leave the platform and escape down the street behind it, but this was seen by a fraction of Arcopan, who pursued her, caught up and threw her down to kick her on the pavement, although the person who came off worst was her brother who lay over her to protect her. Her companions got her away but this group then returned to the main street, where they saw Hugo Roque, President of Regional Chulumani and the only one of the five directory members who had opposed the failed election by queues, after which he had not taken part. While men had beaten Cossio, this time it was a small squad of women who ran to attack Roque, and on the way attacked anyone, man or woman, who was in their way. The rest of the group from Chulumani got Roque away and went to the Market to go and congratulate Daynor on his victory. It should be mentioned that women shock troops are now an established tactic; given the promotion of the Law 348 condemning violence against women, it is assumed that one cannot hit a woman even in self defence and therefore they can attack men with impunity, the men can only try to protect themselves or run away. This was ignored by the ’huanquistas’ who went for Cossio, where men lead the assault; they were identified as being in large part close relatives of Imer himself, which perhaps explains why they lost control and forgot all strategy. And whether men or women, it is always an error to beat up a lawyer. Within 24 hours Cossio had already presented the accusation to the prosecution service (Fiscalía), although – at the time of writing – the official list of charges has not been made public, giving rise to speculation if only those guilty of physical assault will be prosecuted, or if the list will include – for instance – the Minutes Secretary and other leaders of the Regional, for ‘incitement’ to violence, or perhaps intellectual authorship of the attacks. The Minutes Secretary declared that Cossio had had custody of Imer’s documents from the 2nd to the 9th of December, and supposed opened the sealed envelope to extract and conceal documents which were present, but even if this can be proved, it will not undo the charges for violent assault.

According to recently invented tradition, the new directory headed by Daynor Choque was sworn in the next day in the so called Pilot Plant (Planta Piloto) in Coripata (site of a failed attempt to produce coca liquor some forty years ago, and since then basically abandoned), where they also assigned the rest of the posts (whose dispersed votes had not allowed their order to be established on the day). On the next day they formally took charge of the offices in La Paz. Many associates express a general scepticism that they will overcome the chronic problems of embezzlement and tax debts that never manage to get paid off, and while Machicado’s spectacularly corrupt directory were allowed to complete their term of two years, Lizette’s fall has created a bad precedent, since comments circulate along the lines of ‘Let’s see what they do for a few months and if they carry on as before we can just throw them out again’. Although most of the members did little or nothing, when each of the 17 Regionals had a member in the directory they at least had a reason to support the directory, while now that the participation is half in each period – supposedly more efficient – those who do not have a representative this time round now also have a motive to look for reasons to shorten their mandate, so that they will more rapidly be able to stand for the Presidency again. A member of Regional Chulumani was ridiculed for proposing a return to the ‘gentlemen’s pact’ (the Presidency rotated between Chulumani and Coripata, or occasionally Coroico, other Regionals never got a look in), but it is certain that the actual – much more democratic – situation, where any Regional has a chance of winning the top post, gives rise to unpredictable contexts. This is a structural problem founded in the aforementioned electoral system (everyone competes for the head), but it is worsened by the political context. The MAS assumed power declaring that it was a ‘government of the social movements’, and in their first administration (2006-2010) almost all organizations supported them; but in subsequent years, in the course of the inevitable erosion suffered by any party which prolongs its position in power, various organizations, or fractions of them, became discontented with some official policies. The government reacted seeking to co-opt (via the established clientelism which all Bolivian governments practice) certain leaders, giving rise to two organizations with the same name, one official and one ‘organic’ (opposition, or at least not lined up with the government). This became acute in Evo Morales’ third government, and has been continued by Arce Catacora’s administration from 2020 onwards. Given that the tactic of creating a parallel organization has failed in this case, ADEPCOCA continues to be one of the principal targets of these attempts, as detailed above.

The principal victim this time round is Regional Chulumani, which had managed until now to weather the storm without being formally divided (although parallel organizations did appear in some communities). At only a week after the Departmental elections, it is not possible to say what actions the grass roots and/or the fractionated and discredited leadership will take, particularly because the last act of the Electoral Commission before handing over ADEPCOCA to the new directory was to emit a resolution declaring that, due to the disturbances they provoked, Chulumani would be punished by remaining without a representative for ‘four periods of office’. The call for elections did stipulate that any Regional which caused ‘disturbances’ would be ‘punished’ by withdrawal of their candidate, but did not stipulate for how long this suspension would continue. What is certain is that there will be a search for individuals and/or sectors who can be blamed for this situation, and the internal divisions (within communities, even between friends and family members) will arise again, and emerge even between places and people not previously affected by them.