The campaign manager (Roberto Sándoval) for an opposition candidate for the Chuquisaca prefecture (Sabina Cuéllar) was detained yesterday (see news report). He’s accused various crimes, including sedition & attempted “magnicide” (stemming from pro-government & opposition forces a few weeks ago in Sucre). If true, they’re serious crimes, of course. Yet the circumstances of his detention seemed questionable: A number of unidentified, masked men forced him into a vehicle. The government only acknowledged his arrest & announced its indictment 12 hours later, after his wife denounced his kidnapping.
There were a number of other irregularities. Based on reports, the men who arrested Sándoval drove cars belonging to the Ministry of Government (not the police). Usually, such cases are first denounced publicly (that is, a government spokesperson announced the intention to arrest an individual, along w/ the reasons). It was also odd that the head of the police’s anti-crime task force was unaware of any warrants against Sándoval. The courts are now determining whether Sándoval’s arrest was carried out legally (it’s currently unclear whether any warrant existed).
On a pr side, this is bad news for Evo’s government. The move looks too much like bullying of opposition forces. Particularly since this will be taken by opposition forces as a sign that the government is trying to intimidate opposition candidates. Whether Sándoval was guilty or not will become irrelevant for many government opponents.
But even if Sándoval were guilty—and especially if he was guilty of the specific accusations of inciting violence—it was in the government’s best interest to handle the issue delicately. There’s no need to make Sándoval a martyr. Yet this is essentially what the government has chosen to do, by seemingly confirming many of those critics who used “totalitarian” as an adjective for Evo’s government.
Modern politics (for better or worse) is mostly about winning the pr war. There’s no need to deliberately play into the opposition’s hands.
Hmmm... couldn't find "magnicide" in Merriam-Webster. But I see that magnicidio is the equivalent of "assassination" - since the Spanish word for "murder" is asasinato, I guess they needed a different word.
Thanks for picking up the story. It all sounds very bizarre. Hopefully factual details will emerge soon.
Yes, but I think (though I could be wrong) that "magnicide" specifically means an attempt to assassinate a head of state (though here it's being applied to ministers, not the chief executive). And, yes, a truly bizarre twist.
Good analysis, Miguel. I also think that this will turn out to be a PR disaster for Evo. It is said that he is mad furious (rightfully so) about the Sucre incidents and wants the troublemakers punished, but this is certainly the wrong way of proceeding. This "kidnapping" is too reminiscent of the methods used by dictatorships in the past to go well with the public, and the opposition will take advantage of that.
By the way, I looked up the dictionary of the RAE for "magnicidio". Apparently it means murder of a person considered important for his position or power -- in this case Evo's ministers, I suppose. I do not know if the crime really exists separately from murder in the Bolivian penal code, but Rada, Quintana and Co. often throw fancy-sounding legal terminology in their statements to make them appear more serious.
Thanks for the vocabulary lesson, Miguel and Jorge. :)