Bolivian President Luis Arce on Monday highlighted the role of Brazil and his counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in consolidating the region’s integration.
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In an exclusive interview for teleSUR, the Bolivian head of state stated: “This phase in the history of our countries is very important. Lula represents the consolidation of all these processes that have recovered in the country and if they exist, it is all very favorable for integration.”
“The countries of the region have always had two obstacles to integration that are much more interconnected, on the one hand we sometimes didn’t have the economic stability that we needed and on the other political stability because there were a lot of governments of different tendencies, usually right-wing governments that pursuing neoliberal policies and not allowing dialogue between our countries,” he said.
Additionally, he commented that with greater political affinity, it is possible that they would work together to address the different economic issues and “give the region a boost to become a region that shows the whole world that it can do things differently.” than what the developed countries have been talking about”.
The Bolivian President highlighted the changes seen in the region in recent years with new governments committed to the well-being of the population, including the cases of Colombia, Honduras and Brazil.
“It was important because today we suddenly have Brazil, a government that we know, comrade Lula, we are sure will be of service to the Brazilian people, who have suffered a lot in recent years, as well as many countries and many peoples of our Latin American countries” who have had authorities that have not “applied appropriate policies to solve the real problem” they are going through.
Today we met the new president of in Brasilia #Brazilthe brother @LulaOficialwith which we decided to deepen a broad agenda of work for the benefit of our peoples, covering border issues, gas, electricity, urea, investment and trade. pic.twitter.com/6cn1Jgr8eI
— Luis Alberto Arce Catacora (Lucho Arce) (@LuchoXBolivia)
January 2, 2023
Arce noted that he hopes to improve bilateral relations with the new Brazilian government to discuss various issues of common interest between neighboring countries.
He also recalled that there were many unresolved doubts about the behavior of former President Jair Bolsonaro with regard to the 2019 coup in Bolivia: “They are doubts, they are hypotheses that we have always wanted to clarify.” I have it Mr. Bolsonaro publicly stated that he has many things to explain to the Bolivian people.”
On the other hand, he spoke about how Bolivia managed to get back on track after restoring democracy after the 2019 coup: “We saw it exactly when we took office in 2020, we drastically had to face no government because of the pandemic face, they have left many people in greater poverty and inequality; we had to rebuild the country and it wasn’t easy,” he said.
Likewise, he reiterated that they have achieved good results through the policies applied, “including economic as well as low inflation, not only in the region, as one of the first countries on the planet, Bolivia is demonstrating that the economic governance is right, we have growth, we reduce inequality, we reduce poverty in our country”.
Regarding the Amazon, he expressed that this is one of the issues to work on together with Brazil, since he considers it important not only to take care of and protect this territory, but also to ensure the quality of life of the population who live there. .