THE countdown has begun for the recall referendum to which the president and vice president of Bolivia and the country’s departmental governors are voluntarily submitting, as the result of a maneuver in which political and economic right-wing forces attempted to corner Evo Morales. But now they are sensing that their maneuver might boomerang on them.

The referendum was proposed by the president, and after several delays, emboldened by pro-secession referendums in what is known as Media Luna Oriental, the Chamber of Senators — in which the opposition holds a majority — gave it the green light.

Since then, having realized that they are walking a razor’s edge, groups within the right-wing opposition have set into motion all types of tricks to prevent the people from voting on August 10 and expressing their will at the ballot box — which, according to all the polls, is support for their president and for the process of change.

Afraid of not obtaining the number of votes stipulated by the law for the referendum — more votes than those that they were elected with — the departmental governors publicly announced that they would not take part in it. Then they realized that they were losing credibility because, as reiterated, the initiative came from their political representatives in the Senate.

Their next strategy was to question how the referendum was being put to the people; then, they questioned the electoral rolls — which they accepted during the pro-secession referendums in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Pando and Benin; and finally, just a few days ago – this late in the game – they appealed on the grounds that the referendum was unconstitutional, and Judge Silvia Salame joined in.

Of course, all of this technical paraphernalia has been accompanied by campaigns to discredit the government and President Morales and Vice President García Linera in particular. These have been carried out by the euphemistically self-titled National Democratic Council (CONALDE) — refuge of the opposition’s most radical and violent groups — not to mention the privately-owned media, which have constantly mounted, heightened and stimulated the campaign of manipulation against the government, without one day of respite. As Morales has repeatedly noted, "Getting the Indian out" has been the slogan of the right wing and of course, that of imperialism.

Hence, the issue is not the referendum. That is just one of the tentacles of a greater plan, which is to defeat the process of change underway in the country and which, from the outset, has had to stand up to the obstacles posed by groups who have lost their power, and who are, moreover, fearful of losing all their economic privileges and the oxygen they have historically received from their dependency on foreign interests.

The violence unleashed from Santa Cruz and repeated in other departments has also been a trial balloon to see how far they can go in provoking the MAS-led government, its president, and the majority of the population who support him, and even the international community, which has been witness to the vandalistic and neo-fascist actions of the Juventud Cruceña organization, which emulates the Blackshirts.

It is a plan that is coordinated, paid for and led, moreover, by the U.S. government via the CIA and other U.S. agencies, despite the fact that on his most recent visit to La Paz, Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, shamelessly denied it. Of course, nobody believed him.

For the job, they designated Phillip Goldberg, the man of Yugoslavia’s Balkanization and the one Shannon defended as "a respected man of ideas" in the State Department, as their representative in the Andean country.

The issue of the "diplomat’s" interventionist conduct, and the financial help that is streaming into the country from diverse U.S. agencies for purposes of subversion and destabilization, were exposed in all clarity and transparency by the Bolivian president during his meeting with Shannon at Quemado Palace on July 23. There was no lack of evidence. And cynicism on the part of the empire’s representative was abundant.

The Bolivian government is aware that, as D-Day comes closer, the right-wing opposition will step up its maneuvering to achieve the country’s ungovernability and hinder the referendum.

While this is going on, the liberation process continues moving forward. An increase has just been approved for the "Dignity Pension" for citizens over 60 years old, and the "Juancito Pinto Voucher" distributed to keep children from dropping out of school has been expanded to the eighth grade. Funds for the latter are what the departmental governments are now demanding should be returned: that is, the $200 million from a direct tax on hydrocarbons (IDH) that are being used for social justice programs.