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19/08/2009 | Bolivia struggles to implement new constitution after hard-fought adoption

John Enders

Bolivians voted for a new constitution in January after months of wrangling that included outbreaks of deadly violence and turmoil that threatened to tear this Andean nation apart.Passing the charter may have been the easy part. Now, President Evo Morales faces the complicated challenge of implementing it.

 

Morales, a longtime leader of the coca growers union in the Chapare region of central Bolivia, made changing the nation's constitution a central goal of his three-year-old administration.

Some of the proposed changes were relatively easy. Congress is now called the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. The word plurinational is meant to reflect the indigenous diversity of the country, which broke away from Spain 200 years ago.

The new constitution set a date for new presidential and national assembly elections in December and for state offices in April 2010, and it changed the country's name from the ``Republic of Bolivia'' to the ``Plurinational State of Bolivia.'' All of this, say Morales and other leaders of his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, is designed to ``refound'' and ``decolonize'' one of the continent's poorest and most indigenous countries and to give special status to its ``original'' inhabitants.

The new constitution recognizes 36 indigenous communities in Bolivia, and declares them all to be ``official'' languages of the country. Many have never been written down. Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, an urban guerrilla during previous conservative governments, announced last month that the government's public administration school would begin training bureaucrats to speak Aymara, Quetchua and Guarani.

``All government workers, without exception, will have to participate gradually. In coming years, all will have to learn an indigenous language,'' Garcia Linera said.

Bolivia's new constitution also provides for additional national assembly seats for indigenous groups, and it nationalizes resources and idle lands, giving rise to increased conflicts with private mine owners, farmers and ranchers.

Business leaders have said the increased state control over the economy undermines private property rights and discourages domestic and foreign investment. There have been several takeovers of mines and other properties by local indigenous groups that feel empowered by the new charter.

LARGE OPPOSITION

While the government pushes ahead with implementing the charter, it faces widespread opposition. Almost half of the country's departments or states voted against it, including the economic powerhouse Santa Cruz and the natural gas-rich Tarija, near the border with Argentina. Critics say the government is pitting racial groups against each another and encouraging its indigenous followers to hate the mestizos and whites.

``There will come a time when no one will be able to control them,'' said Oscar Montes, the popular mayor of Tarija in southern Bolivia, a hotbed of dissent. But for now, he said, the Morales government is solidly in charge.

One of the more unpredictable aspects of the constitution is that it recognizes the right of indigenous communities to practice traditional ``communal'' justice. That can include stoning, burning and even lynching, and critics call it ``vigilante'' justice. Local campesino leaders say it's their way of controlling crime.

The constitutional structure is unique and ``does not exist anywhere in the world,'' said Carlos Hugo Molina, a lawyer and constitutional law expert in the southeastern city of Santa Cruz.

One of the biggest and most controversial changes under the constitution is that it allows Morales to run for another five-year term in elections scheduled for Dec 6. Opponents of an earlier draft unsuccessfully fought to prevent the change.

Morales is campaigning for reelection and, with the opposition deeply divided, he is widely expected to win.

Yet another article in the new constitution allows the national assembly -- not the people -- to amend the charter with a two-thirds vote. Morales has said he wants his MAS party to win 70 percent of both houses of the congress. If he is successful, he will be able to easily amend the constitution to allow indefinite rule.

VIABLE CHANGES?

Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Latin American Dialogue, said the constitution contains many ``positive features'' that reflect the ``lofty aspirations of most Bolivians.''

But, he adds, ``in some ways, it resembles a wish list and may be tough to put in practice.

``The capacity of the country's institutions is limited and will be put to a severe test in applying many articles. It is in interpreting and implementing the constitution when things could get complicated,'' Shifter said.

Miami Herald (Estados Unidos)

 


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