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Pegas

10.21.2006

Technorati tags: Bolivia politics Evo Morales

There's been pressure, recently, on Evo's government to provide pegas ("spoils" jobs) to MAS supporters. Today, it seems, the government agreed. What does this mean? It means two things:

First, despite protests to the contrary, MAS has become like the "traditional parties" they claim to despite. In fact, MAS supporters staked their claim to public sector jobs on the basis that, traditionally, political parties used to reward their supporters w/ pegas. Of course, this is one of the reasons why much of the bureaucracy in Bolivia was regularly unstable, unprofessional, and undisciplined.

Second, Evo's government is apparently mandating a litmus test for public employees. Those who support the MAS "revolutionary" project can keep their jobs; those that don't, won't. What will this mean for some of the more "technical" public bureaucracies (e.g. the Central Bank)? I don't know.

The sad thing is that this further erodes the professionalism of the public sector, which was one of the goals of the 1990s reforms. We've already had a MAS cabinet minister who bragged — publicly — that he'd never read a book. I shudder to think of that kind of ersatz spreading down through the bureaucratic ranks. Not to mention that pegas is a clear tool for clientelism & a sure path to corruption. Which is exactly why many who opposed the "traditional" parties criticized them.

In a modern, institutionalized (Weberian) state, bureaucracies are supposed to be professionalized. Government employees are supposed to be hired & promoted on the basis of their competence. Sure, you may replace a titular head of an agency or name new ambassadors. But the rank & file of the bureaucracy stays in place. You don't fire all the DMV workers after an election. But this is what Evo's government is proposing. Even worse, it's doing it explicitly, w/ a planned purge of employees not loyal to MAS. At the very least, the previous system of pegas was subtle, which recognized that it "should't" be that way.

Posted by Miguel at 10:53 AM

Comments

Posted by: Steven M at October 28, 2006 08:27 PM