Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Democracy, Latin America.
Tags: benjamin dangl, Bolivia, bolivia economy, bolivia election, bolivia government, bolivia nationalization, bolivia socialism, democracy, Evo Morales, Latin America, latin america government, latin america politics, mas, roger hollander, socialism
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| Written by Benjamin Dangl |
| Monday, 07 December 2009, http://www.upsidedownworld.org |
MAS Victory Celebration in La Paz, Bolivia (ABI)
Bolivian President Evo Morales was re-elected on Sunday, December 6th in a landslide victory. After the polls closed, fireworks, music and celebrations filled the Plaza Murillo in downtown La Paz where MAS supporters chanted “Evo Again! Evo Again!” Addressing the crowd from the presidential palace balcony, Morales said, “The people, with their participation, showed once again that it’s possible to change Bolivia… We have the responsibility to deepen and accelerate this process of change.” Though the official results are not yet known, exit polls show that Morales won roughly 63% of the vote, with his closest rival, former conservative governor Manfred Reyes Villa, winning around 23% of the vote.
The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Morales’ political party, also won over two thirds of the seats in the lower house and the senate, meaning the MAS administration will have an easier time passing laws without right wing opposition.
Many of Bolivia’s indigenous and impoverished majority identify with Morales, an indigenous man who grew up poor and was a grassroots leader before his election as president in 2005. Many also voted for Morales because of new government programs aimed at empowering the country’s marginalized people.
“Brother Evo Morales is working for the poorest people, for the people that are fighting for their survival,” El Alto street vendor Julio Fernandez told Bloomberg reporter Jonathan Levin on election day.
“He’s changing things. He’s helping the poor and building highways and schools,” Veronica Canizaya, a 49-year old housewife, told Reuters before voting near Lake Titicaca.
During his first four years in office Morales partially nationalized Bolivia’s vast gas reserves, ushered in a new constitution written in a constituent assembly, granted more rights to indigenous people and exerted more state-control over natural resources and the economy. Much of the wealth generated from new state-run industries has been directed to various social and development programs to benefit impoverished sectors of society.
For example, Inez Mamani receives a government stipend to help her care for her newborn baby. The funding is thanks to the state-run gas company. Mamani, who also has five other children, spoke with Annie Murphy of National Public Radio about the program. “With my other children, there wasn’t a program like this. It was sad the way we raised them. Now they have milk, clothing, diapers, and it’s great that the government helps us. Before, natural resources were privately owned and there wasn’t this sort of support.”
In addition to the support for mothers, the government also gives stipends to young students and the elderly; the stipends reached some 2 million people in 2009. “I’m a teacher and I see that the kids go to school with hope, because they get breakfast there and the subsidies … I ask them how they spend the hand-outs and some of them say they buy shoes. Some didn’t have shoes before,” Irene Paz told Reuters after voting in El Alto.
Thanks to such far-reaching government programs and socialistic policies, Bolivia’s economic growth has been higher during the four years under Morales than at any other period during the last three decades, according to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“None of this would have been possible without the government’s regaining control of the country’s natural resources,” said CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot. “Bolivia’s fiscal stimulus over the past year was vastly larger than ours in the United States, relative to their economy.”
During Morales’ new term in office, with over two thirds control in both houses of congress, the MAS government should be able to further apply the changes established in the new constitution, a document passed in a national vote this past January. The MAS base is eager for land reform, broader access to public services, development projects and more say in how their government is run. The mandate and demands for massive changes are now greater than ever.
As Bolivian political analyst Franklin Pareja told IPS News, “In the past four years, the change was an illusion, and now it should be real.”
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Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press) and the forthcoming book Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. Email: Bendangl(at)gmail.com |
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Latin America.
Tags: alexei barrionuevo, Bolivia, bolivia assassination plot, Bolivia constitution, bolivia dea, bolivia election, bolivia government, bolivia neo-liberal, bolivia opposition, bolivia politics, european mercenaries, Evo Morales, morales assination, morales hunger strike, Obama, philip goldberg, roger hollander
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, said that a reported attempt to assassinate him last week was linked to a vote in Congress that would allow him to run for re-election, and he suggested the plot was related to a coup attempt last year that led him to expel the American ambassador.
Mr. Morales said earlier last week that an elite police squad shot dead three men in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz who were involved in a thwarted plot to kill him, his vice president and his chief of staff. They were killed after they opened fire on commandos who tried to enter their hotel room.
On Saturday Mr. Morales said the police had determined the plot involved European mercenaries, with Bolivians aiding in the planning. Investigators are looking into how the suspected plot was organized and financed, with Mr. Morales saying he did not believe that Bolivian businessmen and oligarchs “financed so much money.”
Opponents of Mr. Morales said it was too early to describe the episode as a foiled assassination plot without detailed proof.
Mr. Morales said the episode was related to his five-day hunger strike, which ended Tuesday. He fasted to protest delays in voting on a measure that could allow residents of a gas-rich area to seek administrative autonomy for their provinces and make him eligible for re-election.
He used the bulk of a press conference here to detail the history of what he believes to have been involvement by American officials in attempts to overthrow him. In September he expelled American ambassador Philip S. Goldberg, accusing him of supporting rebellious groups in eastern Bolivia. Mr. Morales also later threw out officials from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
Mr. Morales said Saturday that he gave instructions to his vice president to intervene with certain “neo-liberal” groups. Police officers discovered arms, bombs and telescopic sights with silencers, he said.
Early Saturday, at a meeting of 12 South American leaders, the Bolivian president presented Mr. Obama, who was attending at the group’s invitation, with specific information about mercenaries who he said were operating in his country, said Bharrat Jagdeo, the president of Guyana, who attended the session. Mr. Obama responded in the meeting by saying that his administration does not promote the overthrow of any democratically elected head of state nor support assassination of leaders of any country, Mr. Jagdeo said. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, confirmed the account.
Mr. Morales told reporters after the meeting that if Mr. Obama does not repudiate the alleged plot to kill him, “I might think it was organized through the embassy.”
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Latin America.
Tags: boivia land, Bolivia, Bolivia constitution, bolivia election, bolivia opposition, bolivia referendum, Evo Morales, friedman-rudovsk, indigenous rights, land expropriation, mark weisbrot, obama administration, roger hollander
Jean Friedman-Rudovsk, La Paz, January 27, www.boliviarising.blogspot.com
If President Barack Obama were to decide that “change” includes rewriting the United States constitution, he would probably find himself on the curb of Pennsylvania Avenue quicker than you can say Bill of Rights. But for left-wing Latin American Presidents, redoing national charters has become a norm. On Sunday, Bolivia became the most recent nation to be reborn. (See pictures of people around the world watching Obama’s Inauguration.)
“I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all my brothers and sisters who have used their democratic participation to re-found Bolivia,” President Evo Morales said on Sunday night in front of thousands of exhilarated supporters after more than 60% of his nation had voted in favor of a new constitution. “Internal and external colonialism have come to an end.”
It isn’t all that novel a move: the new constitution is Bolivia’s 17th. But it’s the first to be written via a specially elected delegate assembly and the first to undergo a national vote. (The last constitution was written and enacted by Parliament in 1967 without the participation of a single indigenous person). An elaborate document, it expands the rights of the indigenous majority. Bolivia’s 36 native tongues are now all official languages, along with Spanish, and Parliament will include ethnic group representation. Also, the text solidifies state control over natural resources and makes access to water a basic human right.
The win was widely expected, as was the strong showing in support of the constitution by rural and highland voters. But like Bolivia’s recall vote last August, in which Morales won 67% national approval, Sunday showed that Bolivia’s east/west regional divide that brought the country to the brink of civil war last September remains. The constitution was heavily rejected in the eastern lowlands of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija where wealthy land and business owners dominate local politics. Criticism ranged from the constitution’s elimination of Catholicism’s privileged position as official religion to worry about “extreme indigenous power.”
But for many, the document’s specifics were only a part of Sunday’s contest. Five year-old Joaquin Claros, who was hanging onto his mom’s arm outside a La Paz polling station on Sunday, knew what was at stake. Mom and dad, he exclaimed excitedly, had voted “for Evo!”
“Evo,” of course, wasn’t a ballot option (it was either Yes or No on various categories). But Sunday’s vote was considered just as much a referendum on the President as it was on the text. Government officials therefore interpret the 20-plus point victory as a solid win. Opposition leaders say that the document’s rejection in the eastern part of the country means that there must be some move toward compromise.
Compromise may in fact have already been key in the constitution’s passage. An earlier version allowed for expropriation of large estates — a hot button issue in a country where less than one percent of the population owns more than two thirds of the land. But negotiations resulted in leaving the current holdings as is and limiting future landownership. On Sunday voters had a choice between limiting ownership to 10,000 or 25,000 acres per person limit. They voted 75% in favor of the former.
An agreement before the referendum avoided a battle over re-election. Sometime after Morales’ ally Venezuela President Hugo Chavez failed in his bid at ending presidential term limits, Morales agreed to keep Bolivia’s re-election laws as is. He is therefore able to compete in this December’s Presidential elections for one more five-year term — but no more. That doesn’t mean he wont try “to pull a Chavez,” noted Santa Cruz resident Alberto Montero last week, referring to the Venezuelan’s attempt to pass a separate referendum on indefinite re-election after Venezuela’s new constitution was approved.
“But there will be more wrangling down the line.” A constitution is only a foundation,” says Carlos Alarcon, a constitutional lawyer and Vice Minister of Justice under former President Carlos Mesa. There is likely to be debate about any new legislation based on the language of the new charter. “Bolivia is going to have to strengthen its institutions — both state and judicial — if this new constitution and the new laws are going be implemented.”
In Washington, the Obama Administration responded positively to Bolivia’s vote. Responding to a reporter’s question, acting State Department Spokesman Robert Wood said, “we congratulate the Bolivian people on the referendum… we look forward to working with the Bolivian Government in ways we can to further democracy and prosperity in the hemisphere.” Says Mark Weisbrot, director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research: “it’s a hopeful sign” for the future of relations between the two countries. The previous U.S. administration would most likely have remained silent on Bolivia’s electoral processes.
Republished from Time
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Latin America.
Tags: aymara, Bolivia, Bolivia constitution, bolivia election, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, humala, indigenous rights, land reform, Latin America, latin america government, mas, menchu, native rights, pachamama, Rafael Correa, roger hollander, sara miller llana, zapatista
BOWLERS IN BOLIVA: Aymara women went to the polls to vote on a new constitution Sunday. It passed.
Enrique Castro-Mendivil/ Reuters
Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 27, 2009 edition
La Paz, Bolivia – Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, easily won his campaign for a new constitution Sunday – promising vast new powers to the country’s indigenous majority and bolstering his political clout.
Critics say Mr. Morales is dangerously dividing the nation and merely following in the footsteps of populist leftist allies Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, who have also rewritten their constitutions to invest the executive branch with more power.
True or not, something more is happening: This is a victory for Latin American indigenous groups marginalized since the Spanish conquest 500 years ago, say analysts, and some see it as a global human rights and racial-equity landmark.
“Bolivia’s successful referendum process is precedent-setting with respect to indigenous empowerment worldwide,” says Robert Albro, an expert on social and indigenous movements in Latin America at American University in Washington.
Exit polls show that almost 60 percent of Bolivians voted in favor of a new magna carta that recognizes 36 different indigenous groups and secures a place for them in Congress.
“It is really an unbelievable moment in Bolivian history,” says Mr. Albro.
He attributes Morales’s success in Bolivia, starting with his election in 2005 and capped by this referendum, to the urbanization of Bolivian society and the growing political clout of the indigenous, which has created an indigenous elite.
The obligatory vote on Sunday was peaceful, free of the sometimes deadly confrontation that has marked other moments leading up to constitutional reform in Bolivia – with Morales and his opposition, mainly based in the mineral-rich, tropical lowlands, locked in battles over regional autonomy and control over gas reserves.
The new constitution contains over 400 articles but its centerpiece is the effort to “decolonize” Bolivian society.
The indigenous comprise the majority of the poor, in the poorest nation in South America, and were only granted the right to vote less than 60 years ago.
The new constitution reserves seats in Congress and in the Constitutional Court for smaller indigenous groups, and grants all of them autonomy that will, among other things, allow them to practice community justice, according to their own customs.
In one of the more controversial articles, Bolivia now guarantees freedom of religion, extending the same recognition to the Andean god Pachamama, the Earth god of the Andes, as it does to the Christian God.
The current Constitution “recognizes and supports” the Roman Catholic church.
Sunday’s vote included another referendum that asked Bolivians if they wanted limit the size of land holdings to no more than 5,000 or 10,000 hectares – in a government effort to more equitably distribute land. Official polling results aren’t expected until Feb. 4.
Still, Morales supporters expressed jubilation at the outcome. “We are getting back everything we lost: money and culture,” says Paulina Quiñonez, an Aymaran street vendor in La Paz. “They have robbed so much from us.”
This vote comes as other nations in Latin America have moved, since the 1990s, toward constitutional revisions that recognize “plurinational” states, beginning with Colombia in 1991, says Albro.
The Zapatista movement in Mexico, which emerged in 1994, gave rise to a transnational movement, and presidential candidates Ollanta Humala in Peru and Rigoberta Menchu in Guatemala have also given the movement a boost.
Around the globe, countries such as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have also gone a long way toward recognizing the “cultural rights” of native peoples. But Albro says that Bolivia’s new constitution sets a precedent because of its degree of detail to guarantee the political, cultural, and economic rights of the majority indigenous population by a president of indigenous descent. “Usually such constitutional reforms have been carried out to better ‘recognize’ indigenous peoples but by largely nonindigenous governments,” he says.
It was a goal that teetered on the brink of failure.
At one point, Bolivian opposition groups boycotted the process and protests turned deadly. In the end, a final draft constitution was only made possible via a series of negotiations and concessions made on the part of Morales and his political party (MAS). Of more than 400 articles, more than a quarter of them were modified.
Morales remains widely popular despite a strong opposition. He won 67 percent of support in a recall referendum in August, higher than the passage of the constitution. But the new constitution allows him to run for another consecutive term, which would end in 2014.
Some worry that the changes are simply a tool to hold onto power. Critics compare Morales to Mr. Chávez in Venezuela, who is holding a referendum next month to allow indefinite reelection for heads of state. “This is a clear victory for the poor,” says Hugo Campos, a retired businessman in El Paz. “But this is too much like Chávez. They are just trying to dominate, and create divisions between [Bolivian] society and even with the US so they can dominate more.”
Opposition forces say that the new constitution is further dividing Bolivian society. “This creates two types of citizens, one that is of [indigenous] origin and one that is not,” says Luis Eduardo Siles, a former congressman and fierce Morales critic. “There was not this hatred in our society before.”
And he says battles are bound to continue. For starters, it is unclear how the constitution, which leaves vast space for more protest and wrangling, will be implemented. “This doesn’t solve any of the real problems. It will just create more fights,” says Mr. Siles.
Indeed, to impliment the reforms outlined by the new constitution will require the passage of dozens of new laws. To get those through Congress, Morales will have to work with the oppostion.
Miguel Centellas, an assistant political science professor at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland who writes a blog on Bolivian politics, says that not only will the sides dig in their heels, but new factions have arisen out of the process.
The opposition parties have splintered over negotiations over the constitution.
Some Morales supporters are angered by the concessions.
“I see this as yet another crisis in a series of crises,” Mr. Centellas says. “I don’t think the referendum will solve anything. … The country will remain just as polarized.”
CHÁVEZ, CASTRO, AND MORALES: A Bolivian woman walks past an Evo Morales campaign poster that includes the leftist leaders of Venezuela and Cuba. Morales denies any financial support from Venezuela.
David Mercado/Reuters
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Latin America.
Tags: Evo Morales, Ecuador, Rafael Correa, Bolivia, roger hollander, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, human rights, Bolivia constitution, la paz, neoliberalism, indigenous rights, benjamin dangl, bolivia election, movement toward socialism, mas, nationalization, aymara, latin america government, bolivia media, bolivian right, bolivia politics
In Walata Chico, Bolivia, Aymara Indian men cast their ballots for a new constitution. (Photo: Juan Karita / AP)
www.truthout.org
25 January 2009Andean Information Network, indigenous organizations advocating a constituyente “sought greater participation in the political decisions regarding the use and distribution of land and natural resources, the allocation of state resources, and national development policies.” In fact, these demands correspond to many of the unapplied rights and guarantees made by previous constitutions. ¿Sí o No? Bolivians Mobilize for National Vote on New Constitution By Benjamin Dangl The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia” (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, a web site on activism and politics in Latin America. Email Bendangl@gmail.com
by: Benjamin Dangl, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Dozens of marches and rallies in support of Bolivia’s new constitution, being voted on today, have filled the streets of the La Paz in recent days. On Tuesday, at a rally for the constitution and to celebrate Venezuela’s donation of 300 tons of asphalt to the city of La Paz, President Evo Morales took the stage, covered in confetti and with a coca leaf wreath around his neck. The crowd cheered and waved signs, one of them saying, “Thanks for the asphalt and the progress.”
The new constitution, written in a diverse assembly which first convened in 2006, is expected to pass in the January 25 national referendum. Other governments led by left-leaning leaders in the region have also passed new constitutions in recent years, including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999 and Rafael Correa in Ecuador in 2008. In varying degrees, Bolivia’s new constitution is expected to play an important role in the implementation of progressive policies developed by the Morales administration and his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).
At the Tuesday rally in La Paz, the sun was strong as drums and roman candles pounded at the air. The screech of packing tape shot out as one bearded participant secured his indigenous wiphala flag to a plastic pole. A group of women blocked off the expanse of one street with a banner that said, “The right wing will not pass – Yes to Evo.”
A giant blown-up balloon statue of Evo Morales – present in nearly every La Paz rally in the days leading up the referendum – stood over the crowd. On his chest was the ballot voters were to face on Sunday: the “Si” box was checked, and, on two boxes regarding what hectare amounts to limit new land purchases at, the 5,000 hectare box was checked, the 10,000 hectare box left blank.
During his speech, Morales sounded a bit tired, no doubt from the nearly endless campaigning he’s been involved in for the new constitution. After the applause died down, he thanked various groups for arriving and urged people to vote for the new constitution. “Brothers and sisters, we believe in you, we believe in the people of Bolivia, so that democratically we can transform Bolivia for all Bolivians,” Morales said. He listed some of the highlights of his three years in office so far, which he said included the nationalization of Bolivia’s gas and the fight against corruption. “But we need to constitutionalize these changes,” he continued.
Morales pointed out that in the new constitution, basic services – such as water, sewer, gas and electricity – would be a human right, as would education and health care. Morales also reflected on the recent history of US intervention in the country and pointed out that the new constitution prohibits the creation of US bases in Bolivia. He clarified that, in spite of the right wing’s claims, the new constitution does not (unfortunately) legalize abortion and gay marriage. Above all, he explained, indigenous rights and indigenous representation in government would be empowered.
At this point in Morales’s speech, one security guard was already starting to yawn. A light rain began to fall, women pulled plastic bags over their bowler hats, and the “Viva La Nueva Constitución” cheers became weaker as people returned to work from their lunch breaks.
History and Division
Bolivian social movements have for decades been demanding that a constituent assembly be organized to rewrite the constitution. According to the book, “Impasse in Bolivia,” by Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing, from 1826 to 2004, Bolivia has had 16 constitutions and six reforms. The first constitution, drafted by Simón Bolívar himself in 1826, promised to create the “world’s most liberal constitution.” However, even the most liberal of constitutions is ineffective if its dictates are not enforced, which has been the case throughout Bolivian history. Kohl and Farthing also point out that, “Until 1945, all constitutions made a distinction between being a Bolivian – a person born in the country or married to a Bolivian – and being a citizen: a status restricted to literate, propertied men that specifically excluded domestic servants, regardless of income.”
Calls for a new constitution as a tool to create a more egalitarian society re-emerged most recently in the 1990′s when indigenous groups in the east of Bolivia demanded a constituent assembly to open new space for their political participation in decision-making at the government level. According to the
It’s this sense of overdue justice that is leading many people to support the new constitution. As university student Leidy Castro told Prensa Latina, “We will be in favor of a Constitution that for the first time includes all Bolivians, no matter how much money people have. In addition, it protects sectors that have been marginalized for a long time.”
None the less, right-wing opponents to the constitution have been active in recent weeks as well, organizing marches and campaigns across the country parallel to the activities of those supporting the constitution. Recently, when these groups collided, there have been some violent confrontations, or at least some strong words exchanged.
Around noon on Wednesday, January 21, a march against the constitution went down the central Prado street in La Paz. Participants were waving the pink flags of the right-wing Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) party with the message “Vamos por el No” written on them. They arrived in the Plaza de Estudiantes where the ever-present Evo Morales balloon was situated along with a giant “Sí” balloon. A crowd of supporters of the new constitution had already gathered there; one of them had a microphone through which he broadcasted his attacks on the right wing with comments such as “You traitors don’t have a real plan! We have a real plan with our new constitution!”
The tension escalated, and the two groups began tossing their ample literature and pamphlets at each other, yelling opposing chants. On one side were the blue flags of the MAS, and the multicolored wiphala flag, and on the other were the pink flags of the MNR. After some spirited verbal battles and a few scuffles and pushing matches, the MNR contingent marched back up the street, while the MAS supporters remained in the plaza, giving speeches and firing off roman candles into the evening. At a nearby university, revolutionary folk music blasted throughout the day from a speaker next to Palestinian flags and literature about Israel’s attacks on Gaza. (Morales recently expelled Israel’s ambassador to Bolivia in protest of the bombings in Gaza.) The university’s students have been hosting almost nightly marches and torch-filled, bonfire rallies in support of the new constitution.
Media and Change
There have been numerous street battles throughout the process of re-writing and approving the new constitution. But another battle has been waged in the country’s media. Major newspapers in Bolivia seem almost unanimously critical of the constitution and the MAS, spreading regular misinformation about both. For example, a recent headline in El Diario newspaper said, “Bolivia Will Return To Barbarism With Community Justice.” (Community justice, practiced by many indigenous groups across the country, is officially recognized in the new constitution.) In numerous papers, opinion articles and pieces that draw exclusively from right-wing politicians and civic leaders are regularly passed off as straight news, with headlines full of outright lies about the new constitution’s contents.
Edwin, a La Paz taxi driver who used to work hauling furniture and goods on his back at local markets, agreed that most media in Bolivia are against Morales and the new constitution. “But who cares what they say? The journalists are few, but we, the Bolivian people, are many.”
In response to the media’s attacks against the government, Morales has announced the launch of a new state newspaper called “Cambio” (Change), which was released January 22. “We are organizing ourselves, we are preparing ourselves with media to broadcast the truth to the Bolivian people,” Morales said in a recent speech. “This new newspaper will be launched, that won’t humiliate anyone, but will inform and educate us.”
Regardless of the extent to which the changes in the new constitution are applied, the document is significant in that it has been a central part of the political battleground for the bulk of Morales’s time in office. The constitution is also a kind of mirror held up to Bolivian politics, representing the hopes, contradictions and shortcomings of various sides of the political divide.
There are many valid criticisms of the constitution from the left – that the document won’t allow for the breakup of existing large land holdings, that it won’t legalize abortion, that it doesn’t go far enough in combating neoliberalism, that there exists a lot of vague language about how these changes will be implemented, and more. But of the many people who will cast their ballot for the constitution today, a significant number won’t be voting specifically for the new document, or even the MAS government, but against the right wing and the racism, poverty and conflicts the right has exacerbated in recent years.
In any case, passage of the constitution will open up a new phase for the Morales government, as well as a new period of electoral campaigning: if the constitution passes, general elections will be held on December 6 of this year. As Alfredo Rada, the Minister of the Government, said in an interview with Telesur, “The government is optimistic and believes that this Sunday we will win a majority triumph with the “Yes” vote, and with this open a new chapter in Bolivian history.”
For more analysis on the new constitution and upcoming vote, see this previous article:
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Benjamin Dangl is based in Bolivia and is the author of “
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Latin America.
Tags: Evo Morales, Latin American politics, Bolivia, Latin America, Bolivia constitution, la paz, land reform, indigenous rights, benjamin dangl, bolivia election, movement toward socialism, mas, nationalization, bolivian economy, religious freedom, separation state church, roger hollaner
A Bolivian vendor in front of graffiti art reading, “Yes.” The wall refers to the upcoming vote on a new constitution. (Photo: Dado Galdieri / AP)
22 January 2009, www.truthout.org violent one. One key event in this process was the July 2, 2006, election of assembly members to the constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Later, in December 2007, the new constitution was passed in an assembly meeting in Oruro that was boycotted by opposition members. After months of street battles and political meetings, the Bolivian Congress ratified a new draft of the constitution last October 21. In many ways, these various steps will culminate in the January 25 vote.»The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia” (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, a web site on activism and politics in Latin America. Email: Bendangl@gmail.com
by: Benjamin Dangl, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
La Paz – In the morning on Sunday, January 18, after a heavy rain fell on La Paz, Bolivia, the sun came out, drying the umbrellas of thousands of marchers winding through the city streets. The mobilization was in support of a new constitution to be voted on this January 25.
Eddie Mamani, a resident of La Paz with an indigenous wiphala flag draped around his neck, spoke loudly to be heard over the brass band playing behind him. “For too many years we have been exploited by right-wing politicians who do not govern for all Bolivians. We are marching today for our children and our grandchildren.”
The march, which stretched for some five blocks, was filled with the white, blue and black flags of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), the party of President Evo Morales. The sound of fireworks mixed with honking horns from cars and buses waiting for the march to pass. While posters of Morales bobbed up and down in the crowd and copies of the new constitution were handed out to onlookers, marchers yelled “Sí, Sí, Sí! Vamos por el Sí,” urging voters to cast a “Yes” ballot in the upcoming vote. Polls indicate that the constitution will be approved.
Along with the nationalization of Bolivia’s gas reserves, rewriting the constitution was a major promise of Morales during his 2005 presidential campaign. The road to this new constitution has been a long, complicated and often
Among other significant changes, the new constitution allows for a broader involvement of the state in the Bolivian economy, including the state’s participation in the gas and oil industry. It establishes the Bolivian state as plurinacional to reflect the diversity of indigenous and Afro-Bolivian groups in the country. It formally promotes the official use of the country’s 36 indigenous languages. The new constitution also grants autonomy to indigenous groups across the nation, enabling them to govern their own communities. This autonomy for indigenous communities may undermine the power of right-wing prefects in opposition-led departments. The current constitution also expands the number of seats in the recently opposition-controlled Senate, and other seats are reserved specifically for senators elected from indigenous communities.
Like many of the constitution’s critics, Rolando, a thirty-something resident of La Paz, was not enthusiastic about the extended rights granted to indigenous people. Rolando, sporting a beard and baseball cap, said he wouldn’t be voting in support of the new constitution because “it was not written for all Bolivians. It just takes into account the rights of rural and indigenous communities.” This is an often-heard critique of the constitution. Yet it doesn’t fully take into account that 62 percent of the population self-identify as indigenous, and about the same percentage live under the poverty line. Many who support the new constitution are doing so because the document grants long overdue rights to the “originarios,” indigenous Bolivians who have been marginalized for centuries.
Another point of contention is the way the constitution deals with religion. The current constitution says, “The State recognizes and upholds the apostolic Roman Catholic religion. [It] guarantees the exercise of every other cult.” The new constitution says, “The State respects and guarantees the liberty of religion and spiritual beliefs, in accord with one’s cosmovisiones. The State is independent of religion.” Many critics, besides fearing the separation of church and state, say this change opens the window for the government to allow gay marriage and legalize abortion. Unfortunately, nothing indicates that pushing for such much-needed policy changes is on the current government’s agenda.
Under the new constitution, land deemed productive will not be broken up by the government, but unproductive land will be redistributed, and a cap on new land purchases – set either at 5,000 or 10,000 hectares – will be voted on separately. Land reform is an area of the constitution which has been highly criticized from the Bolivian left. Critics say the constitution should go further in addressing the fact that most of Bolivia’s land is in the hands of just a few wealthy families. These weak land reforms are considered a major concession to the right wing; much of Bolivia’s fertile land is in the eastern departments, currently controlled by opposition prefects.
In what appears to have been another concession to the opposition, the draft constitution was also changed to prevent Morales from running for two additional terms, as an earlier draft of the constitution allowed. If the new constitution is approved, Morales will run for his last consecutive term in general elections in December 2009.
The coming days will be full of marches across the country for and against the new constitution. Sunday’s mobilization was a preview of things to come. Max, a participant in the march waving a MAS flag, and who described himself as “just another Bolivian citizen,” said he is supporting the new constitution because, of the many constitutions which Bolivia has had throughout its history, “this is the best one.” He also approved of the way the constitution was developed in the constituent assembly and believed it was “written for all Bolivians” and will “help keep our leaders honest.”
One section of this march ended up in a park with a giant blown-up balloon figure of Evo Morales in the middle of it, and dozens of people handing out pamphlets on the new constitution and MAS calendars for the new year. While one group of people slapped “Sí” bumper stickers on cars in the area, another woman methodically peeled the same stickers off the guard rail of a nearby bridge.
Lourdes Calla, a brown-haired activist in the MAS, wove a wiphala flag and jumped to the rhythm of a nearby chant. “I am voting in support of the constitution for the equality of all Bolivians – there should be no upper and lower economic class, we’re all Bolivians,” she said. “This new constitution has been created through a historically democratic process, and defends the rights of indigenous and rural communities. Now is the time to put these rights into practice.”
Benjamin Dangl is currently based in Bolivia, and is the author of “
The Speed of Change: Bolivian President Morales Empowered by Re-Election December 7, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Bolivia, Democracy, Latin America.Tags: benjamin dangl, Bolivia, bolivia economy, bolivia election, bolivia government, bolivia nationalization, bolivia socialism, democracy, Evo Morales, Latin America, latin america government, latin america politics, mas, roger hollander, socialism
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Bolivian President Evo Morales was re-elected on Sunday, December 6th in a landslide victory. After the polls closed, fireworks, music and celebrations filled the Plaza Murillo in downtown La Paz where MAS supporters chanted “Evo Again! Evo Again!” Addressing the crowd from the presidential palace balcony, Morales said, “The people, with their participation, showed once again that it’s possible to change Bolivia… We have the responsibility to deepen and accelerate this process of change.” Though the official results are not yet known, exit polls show that Morales won roughly 63% of the vote, with his closest rival, former conservative governor Manfred Reyes Villa, winning around 23% of the vote.
The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Morales’ political party, also won over two thirds of the seats in the lower house and the senate, meaning the MAS administration will have an easier time passing laws without right wing opposition.
Many of Bolivia’s indigenous and impoverished majority identify with Morales, an indigenous man who grew up poor and was a grassroots leader before his election as president in 2005. Many also voted for Morales because of new government programs aimed at empowering the country’s marginalized people.
“Brother Evo Morales is working for the poorest people, for the people that are fighting for their survival,” El Alto street vendor Julio Fernandez told Bloomberg reporter Jonathan Levin on election day.
“He’s changing things. He’s helping the poor and building highways and schools,” Veronica Canizaya, a 49-year old housewife, told Reuters before voting near Lake Titicaca.
During his first four years in office Morales partially nationalized Bolivia’s vast gas reserves, ushered in a new constitution written in a constituent assembly, granted more rights to indigenous people and exerted more state-control over natural resources and the economy. Much of the wealth generated from new state-run industries has been directed to various social and development programs to benefit impoverished sectors of society.
For example, Inez Mamani receives a government stipend to help her care for her newborn baby. The funding is thanks to the state-run gas company. Mamani, who also has five other children, spoke with Annie Murphy of National Public Radio about the program. “With my other children, there wasn’t a program like this. It was sad the way we raised them. Now they have milk, clothing, diapers, and it’s great that the government helps us. Before, natural resources were privately owned and there wasn’t this sort of support.”
In addition to the support for mothers, the government also gives stipends to young students and the elderly; the stipends reached some 2 million people in 2009. “I’m a teacher and I see that the kids go to school with hope, because they get breakfast there and the subsidies … I ask them how they spend the hand-outs and some of them say they buy shoes. Some didn’t have shoes before,” Irene Paz told Reuters after voting in El Alto.
Thanks to such far-reaching government programs and socialistic policies, Bolivia’s economic growth has been higher during the four years under Morales than at any other period during the last three decades, according to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“None of this would have been possible without the government’s regaining control of the country’s natural resources,” said CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot. “Bolivia’s fiscal stimulus over the past year was vastly larger than ours in the United States, relative to their economy.”
During Morales’ new term in office, with over two thirds control in both houses of congress, the MAS government should be able to further apply the changes established in the new constitution, a document passed in a national vote this past January. The MAS base is eager for land reform, broader access to public services, development projects and more say in how their government is run. The mandate and demands for massive changes are now greater than ever.
As Bolivian political analyst Franklin Pareja told IPS News, “In the past four years, the change was an illusion, and now it should be real.”
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Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press) and the forthcoming book Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. Email: Bendangl(at)gmail.com