Bolivia’s government denounces opposition destabilization attempts

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “These threats to destabilize the country or to damage Bolivia’s economy will undoubtedly be considered by the Bolivian people at the appropriate time when they will have to express their opinion on the behavior of the government’s opposition,” said Bolivia’s presidential spokesman Jorge Richter.

Richter added that the government is committed to dialogue and that the measures exerting pressure interfere in “the economic reactivation, the reconstruction of the country’s productive sectors, which is why these mobilizations or strikes are nothing more than political,” he said.

Minister of the Presidency María Nela Prada said that the sectors promoting the strike are the same that have their economic situation solved and this is not the reality “of the majority of the Bolivian population, this is not the economic reality of the majority of Bolivian families that live on what they earn per day, that depending on their daily work bring bread to their families’ tables.”

The government announced the withdrawal from the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of the draft Law Against the Legitimization of Illicit Profits in mid-October. As a result, several sectors called for an indefinite strike as of November 8.

According to statements made by the opposition, the strike seeks to repeal Law 1386 on the National Strategy for the Fight against the Legitimization of Illicit Profits and the Financing of Terrorism, which is currently in force and is considered by these sectors as the original law of the rejected bill.