Revolving Door

Can a woman President outlast her predecessors?

Some countries just have no luck with democracy. One of them is Bolivia, a landlocked Andean nation that has somehow managed to survive 188 coups in its 154 years of independence. Five months ago, ending a decade of military rule, Bolivia held presidential elections that alas produced no clear-cut results. Congress then selected Walter Guevara Arze to serve as interim President until another vote could be held next May. Last month Colonel Alberto Natusch Busch, a former commander of the military training school, ousted Guevara in a coup. But Natusch decided to vacate the presidential palace--literally through the back door --after widespread protests against his usurpation. Ignoring the fact that Guevara was, at least technically, the country's lawful acting President, Congress named a new interim chief executive. She is Lydia Gueiler Tejada, 53, a veteran leftist politician and an accountant by profession. Diplomatic observers in La Paz suspect that sooner or later--and it probably will be sooner--the first female to serve as the country's chief executive will be pushed through the revolving door of Bolivian politics.

The gravest threat to Gueiler's administration arises, as it usually does in Bolivia, from the armed forces. Three days after she was presented with the red, gold and green ceremonial sash of the presidency, Gueiler was handed a blunt de mand by a coalition of young pro-democratic army officers. Its substance: that she oust all of the high military officials appointed by Natusch, including General Luis Garcia Meza, a right-wing officer who had been named commander of the army. Gueiler was happy to oblige; she selected General Rene Villaroel, a moderate officer, for Garcia Meza's post. But Garcia Meza, backed by the army's conservative senior officers, would not vacate his command. He refused to step down unless Gueiler replaced him with General Ruben Rocha Patino, a fellow right-winger with close ties to ex-Dictator Hugo Banzer Suarez (1971-78).

Finally Gueiler, who had been a confidante of Chile's late Marxist President Salvador Allende Gossens, caved in to Garcia Meza's demand, appointing Rocha Patino to the army post last week. He obligingly proclaimed that the protesting officers were now ready "to bear with dignity and stoicism whatever sacrifices are demanded by the democratic cause." But Rocha Patifto's statement, cynics noted, was at best a rather lukewarm endorsement of Gueiler's fledgling regime.

Gueiler--or whoever will be running the country in the months ahead--faces some hard, unpopular decisions. In essence, Bolivia is broke. A representative of the International Monetary Fund has recommended a devaluation of the Bolivian peso, which is artificially pegged at 20 to the dollar, to help solve a complex of economic problems ranging from severe inflation to a foreign debt of $3 billion. Natusch, unrealistically, had promised to attack these economic woes by raising workers' salaries "without provoking inflation and without devaluing the currency."

Gueiler is trying a more workable approach. Last week she announced a package of tough new policies. Among them: a stiff hike in the price of gasoline and other fuels and a 25% peso devaluation. But her tough new plan provoked a warning from the heads of the powerful Central Labor Federation, which had sponsored a general strike that helped propel Natusch from office. Workers, declared Federation Leader Juan Lechin Oquendo, "will not accept economic measures that affect their income." If Gueiler's new proposals are carried out, he threatened, his followers were ready to "struggle in the streets."

Besides coping with obstreperous labor leaders, the new President must also develop a strategy for curbing the army's insatiable tendency to intervene in governmental affairs. She also faces potential opposition from disenchanted civilian politicians. Gueiler has no illusions about the difficulty of her task. Asked if she had a remedy for Bolivia's chronic political instability, Gueiler replied: "That is a question that I sincerely wish I had an answer for." -

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