Major Bolivian Parties Block Leftist Attempt to Delay Voting

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The major political parties in Bolivia blocked a last-minute attempt Thursday by the left-wing government of President Hernan Siles Zuazo to postpone the presidential election scheduled for Sunday.

The opposition majority in Congress sidetracked Siles’ move to put off the election until Sept. 15 by refusing to provide a quorum to consider the executive message on postponement. After half an hour and two roll calls, the session was declared closed, and the election will go forward Sunday as scheduled.

Former Presidents Hugo Banzer and Victor Paz Estenssoro, who are the two leading opposition candidates for president in Sunday’s balloting, declared that Siles’ political maneuvering had endangered democratic government.

The armed forces high command, in a statement addressed to the president, said that there should be no change in the election calendar approved by Congress last November. It requires that Siles yield office Aug. 6 to his elected successor.

Inflation 150% a Month

Endoro Galindo, Banzer’s vice presidential running mate, said that Bolivia’s economic situation “is so desperate that a delay of two months in changing this government could produce social convulsions and irreparable harm.”

Inflation is raising prices at the rate of 150% a month. The Central Bank, taken over by the union that represents its employees, is issuing billions of new pesos to pay government bills. Tax and customs revenues have virtually halted.

“We don’t have the political conditions to do anything corrective now,” Freddy Justiniano, the planning minister in Siles’ Cabinet, said.

Simon Reyes, a director of the Mine Workers Federation, the nation’s strongest union, denied rumors that the leftist federation plans to stage a general strike in a bid to halt Sunday’s balloting.

“The elections will be held Sunday as normally as possible. If there are disturbances, there could be an attempt to have a military takeover,” said Reyes, who is a Communist Party candidate for Congress from Potosi department.

Polls Favor Opposition

Strong opposition sentiment has developed because of the economic hardships suffered in the 2 1/2 years since Siles took office with the backing of a coalition of leftist parties.

Independent polls in major urban and rural areas show that Banzer and Paz could poll at least 70% of the vote between them. The candidate of Siles’ governing coalition, Roberto Jordan Pando, an economist, is given less than 8% of the vote in these polls. There are 17 candidates for president.

If no presidential candidate receives 50% of the popular vote, the new Congress, which will also be elected Sunday, will choose a president from among the three front-runners.

Remo de Nadale, a political columnist for the newspaper El Diario, observed: “The Bolivian people have gone to the right. This is a dramatic reality that the Marxist parties must confront, with their dogmas and ideologies in ruins.”

Emotions are running high. Left-wing labor and political leaders are alarmed over a possible return to the presidency of Banzer, a strong anti-Communist. They talk about forming an “anti-fascist” front to oppose him if he wins.

Western diplomatic sources say that several hundred Siles supporters have been sent to Cuba during the last two years to be trained as guerrillas and political organizers. Banzer supporters say that 600 Cuban advisers in education and public health have been brought to Bolivia under programs approved by the Siles government, which last week decorated Cuba’s President Fidel Castro for his government’s aid in the health field.

Opposed by Business

The business community has never supported Siles, 69, who led a populist revolution in 1952 that nationalized Bolivia’s tin mines and large agricultural estates. That revolution placed Paz in the presidency for the first time, with Siles as his vice president. Siles himself became president for the first time in 1956, succeeding Paz. The two leaders, however, have long since drifted apart politically, and nowadays opposition to Siles has spread to the grass roots where he once had his political base.

On Thursday, a crowd of pensioners in front of the National Social Security office jostled police and demanded payments that are weeks in arrears. A young political activist for one of the small, left-wing parties in Siles’ coalition tried to distribute leaflets accusing Banzer, 58, a retired army general, of shooting striking miners and torturing students while he was president between 1970 and 1978. The crowd turned on the activist in anger.

“Go away,” an elderly woman screamed. “Your government is killing everyone of hunger.”

“Banzer is coming back,” a retired miner shouted.

Bolivia, a land-locked, mountainous country of 6 million people, half of whom are peasants, has a turbulent history of unstable government and military coups. In 1982, the armed forces ended 12 years of military rule and restored democracy under Siles, who had been elected in 1980 in balloting that was nullified by the military.

Cocaine Provides Funds

But the new democratic experience under Siles, whose earlier term as president ended in 1960, has been an economic disaster. With inflation out of control, prices have risen more than 8,000% in the past 12 months.

Virtually everyone, from bankers to street peddlers, speculates in U.S. dollars, which are sold illegally on the street here. Most of the dollars come into the country in return for cocaine, which is believed to finance half of all imports. The Central Bank has no dollars to pay foreign creditors or finance the importation of essential spare parts, but illegal automobiles, whiskey, electronic devices and cigarettes pour in, paid for with cocaine dollars.

Under Siles, Bolivia has suspended payments to foreign private banks on a foreign debt of $3.3 billion. Bank of America, Bank of Boston and Citicorp have all closed their branches here.

In the name of labor democracy, Siles has allowed trade unions, led by Juan Lechin, president of the Bolivian Workers’ Central, to exercise a sort of “co-government” in economic affairs. Chronic strikes, fueled by demands for price controls and wage increases to match inflation, have disrupted banking, transportation and production in the mines, which provide Bolivia’s essential exports. The president’s left-wing advisers want him to nationalize all private banks and mines.

Vote Fraud Charged

Facing virtually certain defeat and demoralized by runaway inflation, Siles and his advisers have accused the Electoral Court of preparing an election fraud. On Monday, Siles sent a message to Congress asking for a special session to consider postponing the election of a new president and congress for two months, during which time voter registration would be reopened.

The minister of the interior, Gustavo Sanchez, said thousands of peasants had not been able to register in rural highland areas. He accused the Electoral Court of issuing duplicate voting rolls that could be used to cast ballots for nonexistent voters.

“Those charges are ridiculous,” said Edgar Oblitas, president of the Electoral Court. “The government parties are represented on the court, and they approved the preparations. The government is trying to discredit the future president.”