Bolivia: after the vote

This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Licence (full details below). by John Crabtree from opendemocracy.net The Evo Morales administration won a clear victory in Bolivia’s referendum on 25 January 2009 to approve the country’s new political ground-rules. The “yes” vote achieved 61.43% of the vote, against 38.57% for the “no” option. The 411-article constitution is now due to be promulgated by the president on 7 February to formally replace the previous (1967) constitution. However, the results brought a clear “no” victory in the four departments of the media luna (the “half-moon” eastern lowland departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija). The “yes” option won its least votes in Beni (32.4%) and Santa Cruz (34.7%), the two departments whose prefects have taken the most intransigent line with respect to the new constitution. So if Evo Morales celebrated a further electoral triumph in La Paz (where he had won 67% of the vote in a recall referendum in August 2008), the situation in Santa Cruz is different; the prefect there, Ruben Costas, has threatened to ignore the new constitution and launch a campaign of civil disobedience if Morales refuses to negotiate how the document’s provisions will be applied in the east. This position has been echoed by the prefects of Beni and Tarija. 72 544×376 Normal 0 false false false // At the same time as deciding on the constitution, voters also opted by an overwhelming 80% a proposal to impose a 5,000-hectare limit on the amount of land an individual can own. Perhaps not surprisingly, support for the existence of huge landed estates (latifundismo) has a limited electoral appeal in a country with one of the most unequal distributions of landholding anywhere in Latin America. But as a concession to the opposition in October 2008, the government agreed that the limit would not be made retroactive. So those estates with land-titles over and above the limit – there are estates of 50,000 hectares or more – will not have to worry about expropriation. Between law and politics The passage of the constitution has proved to be far more time-consuming and polarising than most had thought possible when the constituent assembly was first elected in July 2006. The rightwing opposition may have been a minority in the assembly, but it managed to make the most of the blocking power it could wield: first pushing the proceedings way beyond the original twelve-month deadline,  then boycotting the final proceedings and thus disassociating itself from the draft document that emerged, and finally (in October 2008, after a month of violent confrontations) forcing the government to renegotiate on some key points as a condition for passing a law enabling the referendum to be held (see “Bolivia: new constitution, new definition“, 22 January 2009). In legal terms, this should be the end of the story. With those voting “yes” surpassing 50%-plus-one of valid votes cast, the constitution now becomes Bolivia’s fifteenth since the country achieved independence from Spain in 1825. In political terms, however, the new constitution will remain a major source of grievance for those not only dislike what it represents but would like to see the present government removed from office. A necessary negotiation The task of implementing the provisions of the new constitution will require agreements with the opposition both in congress and with the prefects (now to be known as “governors”) at the departmental level. Some of the constitutional changes more involve questions of nomenclature than substance, but around 100 new laws are thought to be required to implement the more substantial innovations. By controlling the senate, the opposition parties are in a position to block those laws they do not like. The current congress, elected under the previous constitution, will remain in office until a new legislature can take up its seats after fresh elections (presidential as well as parliamentary) are held in December 2009. There is therefore plenty of scope for haggling over how the broad principles enunciated in the constitution are actually put into effect. It may ultimately fall to the new legislature – to be known as the “plurinational legislative assembly” – to pass much of this legislation. However, some measures (such as reforms to the electoral law) cannot wait that long. The government stands to benefit from the fissures that emerged in the opposition camp during the referendum campaign. Some of its congressmen, for example, signed up to the October 2008 agreement and refused to support the “no” campaign. It is probable that more divisions will emerge if (as seems likely) the opposition fails to nominate a single, consensus candidate to take on Evo Morales in the presidential poll. The negotiations with the opposition prefects/governors – and behind them the combative civic committees of the media luna – may prove to be much more difficult. They have already begun to prevaricate on the terms on which they are prepared to talk to Morales, turning down the suggestion that they would negotiate one-by-one. The game of cat-and-mouse between La Paz and Santa Cruz seems set to continue. A particularly thorny issue will be the definition of what “regional autonomies” will actually mean in practice. The constitution envisages a system of multi-layered autonomies: at departmental, sub-regional, and municipal levels, and for Bolivia’s indigenous groupings. This scheme is already far from the model of autonomies announced by the prefects at the beginning of 2008 in which power would be vested (largely in themselves) at the departmental level. There will therefore be endless opportunities for discord in working out the functions and attributes of different levels of autonomous authority – in particular, how these are to be financed. The external factor An important additional element in influencing the course of Bolivian politics over the next year will be the positions adopted by external actors: notably the United States, the European Union and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). The message sent to the Morales administration by the incoming Barack Obama team congratulating it for the outcome of the referendum bodes well for a more supportive stance in Washington.  The Bolivian foreign minister has responded by saying that he hopes for a new start in bilateral relations, following the crisis caused by last year’s expulsion of United States ambassador Philip Goldberg. Washington may decide that a new overture towards La Paz may be a price paying to restoring some of its lost influence in South America. This, however, cannot be taken for granted. The European Union has also expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the referendum, to which it sent a number of observers. However, Bolivia’s relations with the EU have been clouded in recent times by its unwillingness to negotiate a framework agreement in which trade liberalisation forms an important part.  The EU has said that it now intends to negotiate trade deals bilaterally with other members of the Andean Community (CAN). But probably most important in direct influence is the response of other South American countries, particularly Brazil and Argentina. Both the Organisation of American States (OAS) and Unasur sent teams of observers to oversee the referendum. Bolivia’s South American neighbours are relieved that the divisive battle over the constitution may have reached its conclusion, and will do what they can to ensure that its provisions are implemented. It became clear in September-October 2009 – when three transnational organisations (Unasur, the OAS and the EU) became involved in mediating Bolivia’s political impasse – that no foreign powers have an interest in seeing either Bolivian democracy or the country’s territorial integrity put at risk by secessionists in Santa Cruz and the media luna (Justin Vogler, “Bolivia nears the precipice“, 17 September 2008). This situation is very different from the 1960s and 1970s when both Brazil and Argentina were actively involved in conspiracies to use regional conflicts to overthrow elected governments in Bolivia. The leaders of both countries – Bolivia’s two main regional economic partners – have gone out of their way to give Evo Morales their personal backing. A bumpy ride Although politics in Bolivia will continue to be conflictive in 2009 and further regional standoffs are to be expected, the main event will be the campaign to elect (or re-elect) the president in December. This may well help channel political energies away from the regional stalemate and focus attention on national issues, not least how the new constitution is to be put into effect. Evo Morales enters this latest political offensive with three substantial advantages: his evident popularity, his unrivalled pre-eminence within the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), and his control over the machinery of the state. The opposition’s task would thus be difficult in any event, but it also faces internal problems: Podemos, the largest of the opposition parties, has been badly divided by internal squabbles and lacks any sort of organised structure within society. The opposition has a formidable task in finding a candidate capable of winning support beyond the media luna (which is not enough to win the presidency). No such candidate who can appeal across Bolivia has so far emerged, though some – such as former president Carlos Mesa and former vice-president Víctor Hugo Cárdenas – have intimated an interest in putting their names forward. In these circumstances, the re-election of Evo Morales seems a likely bet – but this very fact will engender ever greater feelings of frustration among his opponents and possibly a growing reluctance to engage with him through democratic channels. Bolivia’s bumpy political ride continues. This article is published by John Crabtree, , and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. If you teach at a university we ask that your department make a donation. Commercial media must contact us for permission and fees. Some articles on this site are published under different terms.