With a Right-Wing Agenda, Argentina's Macri Wants to Play a Role in Bolivian Elections.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Although voters won't head to the polls for another year, the presidential campaign in Bolivia is already in full swing, and the political right is playing all its cards to prevent President Evo Morales from continuing to control a process that has made the country grow like no other in South American. In this scenario, efforts by Argentine President Mauricio Macri, a supporter of US President Donald Trump's policies, to insert himself in the election process are generating a negative climate in the relations between Bolivia and Argentina that could help right-wing candidates (NotiSur Aug. 4, 2017).
Immigrants become pawns in the game
The more than 1.16 million Bolivians in Argentina are the third largest group, after Bolivians in Spain and the US, in terms of sending remittances to families back home. This is one of several reasons that a conflict with Argentina could have a profound impact on the elections.
Government spokesmen in La Paz said that Macri has tried to generate that conflict since the beginning of the year, so far without success. The first step involved a plan to levy special fees on Bolivians studying at universities in Argentina, where public schools are tuition-free at all levels. It also called for charging fees to Bolivian citizens being treated at public hospitals. The second part of the plan was to accuse Morales of refusing to sign reciprocity agreements for comparable services in Bolivia.
Bolivia defused this campaign by pointing at statistics that show that Bolivians studying in Argentina account for less that 1% of the university population. It also noted that Bolivia provided vision-restoring operations to more than 44,000 Argentines who crossed the border to benefit from Operacion Milagro (Operation Miracle), a free program financed by Bolivia and Venezuela with Cuban ophthalmologists doing eye surgeries.
Historically, Argentina has been a major recipient of Bolivian immigration, which has grown exponentially since the first half of the 20th century, when it was barely significant. Bolivians are now the second largest immigrant group in Argentina, behind Paraguayans. Projecting 2010 census data, estimates of the number of Bolivians living in Argentina--a country with a population of 44 million people--reach a little over 360,000 registered residents and approximately 800,000 undocumented residents, accounting for 19.1% of Argentina's foreign population. Although the current Argentine government has stigmatized...
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