Bolivian President Accuses Opposition of Waging 'Dirty War'

Bolivian President Accuses Opposition of Waging 'Dirty War'



Bolivian President Evo Morales | Photo: EFE

Published 13 December 2015

The president denounced a smear campaign aimed at discrediting him before the referendum that will decide if he can run for re-election.


Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the opposition Sunday of carrying out a “dirty war” against him, about two months ahead of the constitutional referendum, due Feb. 21.

Morales was responding to the recent declaration by Filiberto Escalante, a former memeber of the governing socialist MAS party, who claimed that Morales' “entire family” was managing the state-run oil company YPFB, and that the “nepotism” Morales used to criticize when campaigning for the presidency was actually worse now.

“This is not true. My sister is working in a hospital coordinated by our Cuban friends and my brother Hugo … and my (other) siblings don’t get involved in politics. Here, families do not manage the state,” he said during a sporting event in Cala Cala, in the western department of Oruro.

However, he added, nepotism was frequent in preceding governments, “They felt like the owners of the Presidential Palace.”

He condemned the “slanderous tongues” that made the accusations without any basis, recalling that the national and international right wing used to accuse him of being a drug-trafficker, a murderer and a terrorist.

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