Global Insight Perspective

Significance

Andean democracy is under the spotlight once again as another president offers to resign. Ecuadorian opposite Lucio Gutiérrez was voted out by his country's Congress under two months ago. 

Implications

Lawmakers refused to allow President Mesa to step down amid social unrest in March last year, and government action since then has left the president isolated in the national Congress. Winning sufficient support as protests flood the capital prior to the congressional session is highly unlikely. 

Outlook

Early elections have rapidly become the only viable option for Bolivia's political future, although this will be a short-term fix unless politicians can find a way of adequately engaging the electorate and clarifying the necessity of unpopular free-market policies for the nation's long-term wealth without forgetting the need to target Bolivia's immense social problems. Achieving this in the short-to-medium term is little short of impossible, with the result that investment risks will remain high for the foreseeable future.

Goodbye or Brinkmanship

Bolivia's Congress must today decide whether to accept President Mesa's offer to leave office amid raging public protests that show no sign of abating. The interim leader must be experiencing a profound sense of déjà vu, having taken up the presidency in October 2003 on the early exit of his predecessor and former boss Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who quit after opposition to plans to export Bolivia's energy wealth resulted in the so-called 'Gas War'. Divisions over the best means for Bolivia to capitalise on its natural gas and petroleum resources are a primary cause of social unrest, which has destabilised the Mesa government. The secondary reason - unmet demands for greater devolution and the proliferation of a new constitution - is intimately connected to the first complaint. Energy-rich Santa Cruz and Tarija provinces want greater freedom from central government control, particularly in the economic arena, after the pro-business population was enraged by the passage of left-leaning hydrocarbon legislation last month . Leftist forces want to see the establishment of a Constituent Assembly to progress institutional reforms that will better protect what they perceive as the national interest.

President Mesa has struggled to find a compromise solution to the conflicting demands of polarised groups in Bolivia. First he delayed a decision on whether to veto the controversial hydrocarbons bill in a bid to compel opposing forces to negotiate. Calls for a national dialogue were rejected by social organisations and Congress, leaving the president with little choice other than to allow the draft legislation to become law. Refusing to support the Congress-backed document damaged his relationship with legislators, who had made unusual concessions to opposing parties in order to compile a bill that met somewhere in the middle. Meanwhile, the president's effort to quell unrest by unilaterally setting a date for an autonomy vote and establishing an assembly to develop a new constitution for the Andean country failed to fulfil its aim and angered legislators further . Lawmakers refused to accept Mesa's resignation after anti-privatisation and energy protests in March this year, and they will be less inclined to support his leadership this time round. 

Outlook and Implications

Bolivia's interim leader has fought hard for a negotiated solution to the energy question, winning impressive levels of popular support. This peaked a little over a year ago as the administration achieved high voter turn-out to win resounding backing in a referendum vote supposed to decide finally the future handling of Bolivia's energy wealth . Although his popular-approval ratings have fallen considerably since those days, overall levels of support remain impressive by regional standards. Bolivia remained in the grip of social unrest around a week ago, but the president polled 44% of support. This is symptomatic of the governability challenges facing the Andean region as a whole, in which a respectably popular leader can be forced to resign due to social unrest from sizeable minority groups.

With leftist leader Evo Morales joining those demanding the president's departure, Congress looks set to allow the head of state to step down and look for a successor. Morales, who heads Bolivia's largest Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, has played an important part in the high and low periods of the Mesa presidency. An ad hoc alliance in the early days helped the interim government distance itself from its hated predecessor and win support among the poorer sectors of society. Radical elements swiftly lost patience with the promised reforms, leading the coca growers' champion to gradually dissociate himself from the government as leftist politicians made gains in the December municipal elections.

Making their decision later today, legislators will be well aware of the inadequate alternatives to a continued Mesa government. Without a vice president, Hormando Vaca Diez, who heads the Senate, is the next in line to become Bolivia's interim head of state. He is hardly a consensus-builder, heralding from pro-private sector Santa Cruz province and being right-leaning in his political orientation, which in itself would suffice to fuel future protests from left-leaning, predominantly indigenous groups. If Vaca Diez refuses to accept the post, the second alternative is lower-house leader Mario Cossío, followed by Supreme Court (SCJ) chief Eduardo Rodríguez. Morales has demanded the resignation of both alternative politicians, with his eyes on early elections. The leftist politician was denied a potential election victory in August 2002, when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada forged an uncomfortable coalition with Jaime Paz Zamora of the Leftist Revolutionary Movement (MIR). US officials had threatened to withdraw aid to Bolivia if Morales was elected leader. Efforts to demonstrate political pragmatism and commitment to the democratic process have been on display since then as Morales seeks to overcome barriers to his election, instead allowing him to capitalise on the regional context of a revived Latin American left. During preliminary talks over the weekend, church mediators and a group of politicians posited early elections as a solution to the protracted conflict . Keeping Mesa in office for an agreed period until elections are held arguably offers the least inflammatory solution to Bolivia's intractable crisis. Whether lawmakers allow him to do so will become clear in the next crucial 24 hours.