StampCollector

When a serving president cannot visit the capital of his own country because of fears for his safety, something must be rotten in Denmark.

A week ago Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia, was about to celebrate the most important day in its calendar, 25 de Mayo, the day back in 1809 when the first calls were heard for freedom from Spanish rule.

Normally, 25 de Mayo is a joyous day, a time of parades, candy floss and family fun in the whitewashed streets of the colonial city.

But this year was different. The memory of how three students were killed by national police amid protests last November hung over proceedings. And then the nation’s president, Evo Morales, was coming to town for the first time since their deaths.

TV reporters - skirting past anti-press graffiti from supporters of the president - appeared in the main square as soon as the president announced he would come to Sucre, asking passers-by their opinion: would El Presidente be welcome or not?

And while things may have appeared normal in the genteel environs of the city centre, there were clear signs that perhaps Evo’s visit might not go down so swimmingly.

Inside Bolivia’s foremost historical museum, the Casa de la Libertad, visitors can see where the country first shook off the Spanish yoke almost 200 years ago. In the chamber where Bolivia’s first session of Congress was convened, a large portrait of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, hangs auspiciously above the gilded seat from where the country’s first laws were promulgated.

Our guide around the museum was urbane, full of interesting historical tidbits and told his stories with a wry smile.

He spoke with genuine vigour, telling tales of Spanish colonial rule, of the legendary wealth of Potosi’s silver mines, and of the liberation of Latin America in the early 19th century.

Then he gestured towards the huge portraits of Bolivar and Jose Antonio Sucre, whose name the city still bears.

“Do either of them look like Bolivians?”

The answer, quite evidently, was no. Bolivar was a Venezuelan and Sucre born in Peru, both of creole origin – Spanish by blood but born in the colonies.

A few minutes later our guide asked us the question again, this time in a room decorated with dozens of portraits of Bolivia’s post-independence presidents.

“Do any of them look Bolivian to you?”

The answer was obvious. The only one of Bolivia’s 65 rulers not drawn from the white, elite classes is the current president.

Evo Morales’ portrait is a scruffy affair, the brush strokes neither as exact nor perhaps as deliberate as those in the more classical portraits around him. The angle of view seems a little distant, leaving the impression of empty space around the president’s slightly-too-small head.

Even here, hanging quietly in a corner surrounded by images of his predecessors, among them some well-intentioned men and some downright brutes, Evo stands out as different.

Our guide moved seamlessly from history to politics. His delivery remained the same, but his message was deadly serious.

He told us how Bolivia swept Morales to power, electing him not only as the first indigenous president, but as the first president to win more than 50% of the vote outright. He told us of the hopes and dreams as Bolivia’s impoverished millions celebrated having “one of us” in the presidential palace.

Then he told us how things have gone wrong under Morales’ rule. The price of bread, we were told, has increased dramatically in the past two years. Our guide did not blame the president directly, but neither did he mention the global rise of food prices. The inference was clear.

He went on, complaining – always in that urbane, well-spoken way of his – that the president was too involved with channeling money to his supporters in the highlands to bother much with those elsewhere.

For evidence he cited movements towards autonomy in Santa Cruz, the country’s gas-rich eastern department, and several other regions away from Bolivia’s Altiplano.

Money in Bolivia flows first to La Paz and only then elsewhere, and all at the whim of the government, we were told.

On the streets of Sucre, a city as urbane and educated as the museum guide himself, Morales was still being blamed for the events of last November.

Graffiti bearing the legend “Evo asesino” – “Evo murderer” – remains tagged prominently on city walls, and mock “Wanted” posters call on the president to bring to justice to those policemen suspected of firing the fatal shots.

The night before Morales was due in Sucre hundreds of students gathered to confront riot police near the city’s football stadium, where the president was scheduled to speak the following lunchtime. Ugly clashes followed, and the sounds of gunfire – blank, live or whatever I know not what – peppered the night silence.

The next morning it was announced that the president had decided to call off his visit. Riot police were still out in force in the city’s streets, marching in formation in the direction of the stadium, sent on their way by a volley of hoots and hollers from the ordinary people of Sucre.

Last November’s violence came after an argument about whether to take away Sucre’s status as Bolivia’s constitutional capital. Now it appears lingering resentment in the city may have swung Sucre – and perhaps even the whole department of Chuqisaca - against the president.

“I voted for Evo Morales last time, but I won’t again,” one student told me in the city’s main square, decked out for 25 de Mayo in the livery of Chuqisaca’s burgeoning autonomy movement.

For Evo Morales all of this is more than just mid-term blues. His response to an overwhelming “yes” vote for autonomy in Santa Cruz has been to call what is in effect a nationwide “back me or sack me” vote now scheduled for August.

Back in the museum, our guide summed things up before bidding us farewell.

“The 19th century was the era of tin, the era of mining, the era of the highlands. The 20th century was the era of La Paz. The 21st century seems to be the era of Santa Cruz.

“Are you staying for the party tomorrow? There will be fireworks, that’s for sure – we just don’t know what kind yet.”