Representatives of Bolivia’s labor unions and Indigenous groups met with leftist President Evo Morales to discuss electoral strategy ahead of general elections this October.
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The groups met to decide which candidates will run under the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) ticket. The MAS is the ruling party, headed up by president Evo Morales. However, resolutions were also passed in regards to the ideological platform that the MAS should be representing.
Evo Morales opened the meeting saying, “It is our obligation to create public works projects, to generate jobs, because our politics are orientated towards the liberation of the people ... so that never again do the transnational companies return to loot our natural resources.”
He added, “We’re going to win the elections — that's not the problem. The issue is to win by two-thirds so that we have a majority in the legislative assembly. Before, candidates, deputies, senators had to be approved by the U.S., but now we choose our candidates, and the people elect them.”
The conference itself stated that candidates must be ‘honest, humble … be transparent and upstanding citizens.”
Point 7 of the conference resolutions says that any MAS candidate must have a commitment to gender equality.
The conference also expressed concern at the possibility of right-wing infiltrators. Point 9 read, “The infiltrators only bring right-wing ideas to our ranks. The resentful will move to the right and only serve to divide us.” Finally, the conference ratified that “our principles are anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism and the fight against colonialism and the patriarchy”
The coalition is called CONALCAM (National Coordinator For Change), it’s an organization that brings together a number of worker unions and Indigenous groups into an alliance of social movements affiliated to the ruling MAS. They meet once per month with the president to discuss government policy.