Bolivia-Latin America's poorest nation comes of age.
OLIVA-By Camilla Hagelund, 3rd February 2009
Executive Summary:
- Bolivians recently approved what will be their 17th constitution with an approval rating of 61.43 per cent.
- The constitution proclaims Bolivia to be a plurinational state and extends a variety of rights to the 36 indigenous communities.
- The rightist opposition claims that the constitution is written only for indigenous people, not all Bolivians, and that it will undermine democracy, property rights and individual freedoms.
- One of the most divisive issues in Bolivian politics, autonomy, is further complicated by the new constitution, as two new levels of autonomy are introduced – for regions and indigenous communities – allegedly undermining the autonomy of departments. The prefects of four such departments – in the Eastern lowlands – have been the fiercest opponents to the new constitution.
- There are many issues to be resolved before unity can be forged in Bolivia. Hopefully, the confrontations that are bound to develop over the implementation of the constitution and other contentious issues will take place in a civilised manner within the political system.
Unfortunately, the country’s bleak economic outlook raises the likelihood of continued social conflict and violent clashes.
On 25 January Bolivians voted on a new constitution, which will become the 17th constitution in the history of the Republic of Bolivia. The official result showed an approval rating of 61.43 per cent with 38.57 per cent voting against the new constitution.
Historically, these constitutions classified the population of Bolivia as either "Bolivians" – a person born in Bolivia or married to a person born in Bolivia – or "citizens", a status restricted to literate and propertied men. Though this was rectified in 1945, the indigenous people – originarios – have not ceased to feel discriminated by the political system, which is the underlying rationale for a new constitution.
62 per cent of the population self-identify as indigenous – a proportion of the population, which roughly corresponds to the numbers living below the poverty line.
This is a historic referendum where the eldest amongst the indigenous can still remember a time when they were not allowed to vote.
Calls for a new constitution surfaced in the 1990s when indigenous groups began demanding increased participation in political processes.
The water struggles in spring 2000 – between the indigenous people of Cochabamba and the American cooperation Bechtel, who had taken over control of the water supply, when it was privatised by the government – resulted in Bechtel’s departure and local cooperatives taking its place. These events allowed discussions of alternatives to the old political system.
In the 2002 presidential elections the former cocalero (coca grower) and unionist Evo Morales of Aymara origin won wide support but narrowly lost the elections to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Morales made a strong comeback in 2005 when he won 54 per cent of the vote in the first round of elections.
One of President Morales’ first deeds – making him notorious throughout the Western world – was nationalisation of the gas industry to be followed by take over of mining and telecommunication firms. This pattern was echoed prior to the constitutional referendum, Morales nationalised the Bolivian unit of BP, Chaco Petrolera Ltd. Oil Company. Another of Morales’ major promises in his election campaign was a rewriting of the constitution. This process was initiated quickly after Morales’ appointment with the election of the Constitutional Assembly in June 2006.
The process of rewriting the constitution has been highly criticised, particularly the approval process, which was hastened by Morales’ Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). MAS exploited its majority in the assembly to change the rules of debate, reducing time for deliberation and circumventing the opposition by not circulating daily agendas on time while often not distributing reports from thematic commissions at all. On occasions the opposition were denied access to sessions by pro-government demonstrators in the streets. This led the assembly to move from Sucre to Oruro, although, this decision was only announced a few hours prior to the meeting hindering the opposition from attending. The new draft constitution was approved at a meeting of the assembly in early December 2007 – a meeting boycotted by the opposition, which questions the legitimacy of the process and the finished document.
The following year tensions heightened with continuous clashes between the government and opposition. The opposition to Morales and MAS has traditionally been led by major political parties such as Poder Democrático y Social (PODEMOS), Unidad Nacional (UN) and Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR). However, as autonomy became the main point of contestation, the prefects of the departments of the eastern lowlands rose as leaders of the opposition. The question of autonomy lies at the heart of the divide in Bolivia. Following the election of the Constitutional Assembly in 2006 the four departments of the eastern lowlands – Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija – held referendums on the general concept of departmental autonomy with massive votes in favour. This only fuelled civic groups and departmental authorities to press for further referendums on specific components of departmental autonomy. Such were held in spring and summer 2008, with the department of Santa Cruz starting implementation of its autonomy statutes less than two weeks after its referendum. Whereas Morales is legally bound to respect the first referendums on the general concept, the National Electoral Court has rejected the legitimacy of the later referendums on specific elements of autonomy, and Morales has refused to recognise them.
Another contentious issue compounding the divide between the indigenous peoples of the altiplano (the Andean high plains) and the white and mestizo (mixed-race) population of the eastern lowlands is that of land reform. Fear amongst ranchers in the lowlands that the government would break up their large landholdings led to violent clashes between opposition and pro-government groups in September 2008. The opposition protesters stormed government buildings and blocked highways, and clashes in the Amazonian department Beni saw a dozen Morales supporters killed.These confrontations forced the government to make compromises on controversial issues, specifically on land tenure and Morales’ ability to run for president repeatedly. Thus, the final draft did not allow the government to break up pre-existing large land-holdings but only cap future transactions, and only permits Morales to run for one more term as president.3
The new constitution, describing Bolivia as "a united social state of plurinational communitarian law", will extend the rights of Bolivia’s 36 indigenous groups, recognising their traditional spiritual traditions and all 36 languages.[
Not only does the constitution guarantee freedom of religion, it also declares natural resources and basic services – including water, sewage, gas, electricity, education and health care – essential human rights, and protects the production of coca leaves. The constitution also increases the indigenous people’s power in the judicial system by giving originarios the right to use pre-Columbian traditions of community justice when sentencing criminals, and subjecting judges to popular vote rather than approval by Congress. The number of seats in the Senate will be expanded and seats will be reserved for senators elected in indigenous communities. Presidential powers will be strengthened, for instance by stating that presidential decrees override the norms of departments and mun
