Since the election 8 days ago, everything has been rather… normal. The early days were a bit quiet, but otherwise one wouldn’t generally know that anything was different. I haven’t any idea what happened with the folks marching on the city from the Chapare – as far as I could tell, they never arrived.
I almost regret that. I’m not advocating violence; I am advocating resolution. Sometimes resolution requires a set of confrontations which causes the various involved parties to kick into gear and get things done. Very little of that really happens in Bolivia, and too often when it does the other side cowers in fear and caves under manipulation. The problems are simply left to fester until a later date, which means that some dig deeper into cultural and political bitterness and others just become accepted whether they’re healthy or not.