Evo Morales, You Must Go!

BY JAVIER ESPADA

We live in a country, Bolivia, where a terrible tyrant has governed for 11 years.

During this time, his regime has ordered the construction of 3,000 first-level health centers and 200 second-level health centers. That means every four days, a health center has been built. In 2017 alone, 46 new hospitals are going to be built.

President Evo Morales, you must go.

This ignorant man did not even finish high school, yet he demanded the construction of 4,500 educational units. Illiteracy was reduced to 5 percent and now 85 percent of the population has access to education. To deepen his period of terror, not only did he provide 120,000 free computers for students, but also for teachers. Moreover, he allocated 14 percent of the annual budget to the educational system.

Evo, you must go.

He does not use public transport and only travels in expensive limos, yet he ordered the construction of three cable car lines with a subsidized fare, with four more lines underway. That’s without even mentioning the fact that, under his period of tyranny, 8,077 miles of road has been asphalted, connecting the east of the country to the west and also connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean with the Interoceanic Highway.

Evo, you must go.

Since he only travels in his luxurious private jet, he reduced the prices of airline tickets so that everyone is able to travel to their favorite destination.

Evo, you must go.

Since Evo does not know anything about mathematics, the country’s GDP more than doubled from $9.5 billion to $24.6 billion. There have been 11 consecutive years of economic growth and in 2017, Bolivia is expected to lead the regional economy.

Evo, you must go.

Once this socialist became a millionaire, the national minimum wage increased by 127 percent and with this, two million people were taken out of poverty — overall poverty was reduced from 34 percent to 15.1 percent. Proportional inequality between rich and poor was reduced from 128-1 to 60-1.

Evo, you must go.

Since Evo has no home, he ordered the construction of 20,000 social housing units. In Bolivia, seven out of 10 have their own home. And he provided 400,000 agrarian land titles to poor farmers, guaranteeing their ownership over the land.

Since the dictator-squatter did not have basic services in the countryside, he increased access to potable water to 85.2 percent and now 78 percent of the population has electricity.

Evo, you must go.

During these dreadful years, people were able to buy their first home, their first vehicle or travel the world, but we have had enough of living well and we want you to leave, Evo. We want to go back to those times when there were first and second class citizens, like in the airlines.

We want to return to those glorious times when not everyone could dream or ascend their social class — when only a few could have access to VIP movie theaters, junk food or designer clothes. We want to return to those times when Indigenous people could not step foot on town squares or when women did not accede to political power, when people could not freely express their sexual orientation or political ideology.

We want you to leave, Evo, and not come back, so that when a professional from a good family with a known surname governs and only benefits his own, we will miss you and thank you for everything you did for this country.

Note: This article was originally published in Spanish by La Resistencia Bolivia on July 13, 2017 and translated into English by ANTICONQUISTA on Nov. 11, 2017.