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| Luis Fernando Camacho |
With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.”
“Pachamama will never return to the palace,” he said, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.”
Virtually unknown outside his country, where he had never won a democratic election, Camacho stepped into the void. He is a powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/
I have no idea what this means, if it is a good thing or a bad thing, or if it is legal according to Bolivian law, or how long he will be in power.
It is interesting that he is opposed to Pachamama, which seems to be a pagan Andean fertility goddess worshipped by Pope Francis, so I don't know what Camacho thinks about the Pope.
His political party is the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (Santa Cruz Youth Union), which is labeled as a "fascist paramilitary group".
This seems like an important event, but it isn't front page news.
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More to the backstory.
1. There was accusations of election fraud and protests, leading President Evo Morales to step down.
2. Morales' opponent in the October 20 elections was Carlos Mesa, so it isn't clear why he isn't the president, or the people in line after Morales like the Senate President (who also resigned) or the Senate Vice President.
3. Trump praised the Bolivian people for forcing Morales to step down, but Trump hasn't stated his support for Camacho yet.
4. The confusing issue of term limits:
A. Wikipedia claims that the Bolivian president doesn't have term limits, citing the CIA factbook, but neither Wikipedia or the CIA are credible sources.
B. There was a new 2009 Bolivian constitution which limited the president to 2 terms. However, Morales' first term started in 2006, so that was "grandfathered" in. There was a 2016 referendum to allow the president to have 3 terms, but it was voted down by a 51.3% majority. The Bolivian Constitutional Court in 2017 ruled that the limitation on the number of terms was unconstitutional because it violated the candidate's human rights. There was claims that the court's decision was a coup d'etat because it ignored the voters.
Will there be another election? This is still a very confusing situation.
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Update 2: Now Wikipedia is saying that Jeanine Anez (who was the Second Vice President of the Senate) is the temporary president of Bolivia until new elections are held. But what about Luis?
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| Jeanine Añez |
Update 3: 1. Evo Morales is claiming political asylum in Mexico.
2. The parliamentary session to appoint Anez didn't have a quorum because the opponents boycotted the session. Apparently there was no vote and she hasn't taken an oath, instead she just declared herself president because she was next in line. She has called for elections within 90 days.
3. Morales was a socialist and the American socialists like Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar are claiming that it is a coup.
4. Apparently, Camacho has never claimed to be president, instead he was just the leader of the opposition, even more than Mesa.
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