Bolivia Blog - El Ultimo Returns Home
On July 2nd, Bolivian men and women who are entitled to elect their representatives for the Constituent Assembly shall additionally absolve the existential doubt that the National Congress raised again in recent days. To those who are very confident in themselves and their State, we documented our optimism with this gourmet delicatessen of the Bolivian political machinery: In the frame of national unity, do you agree to grant the Constituent Assembly the binding mandate to establish a system of departmental autonomy, applicable immediately after the enactment of the new political Constitution of the State in the Departments in which this Referendum obtains the majority, so that its authorities be directly elected by the citizens, and receive executive competence, administrative and regulatory powers from the National State, and be allocated economic and financial resources under the new Political Constitution of the State and the Laws and Regulations? Now then according to certain analysts (among them Carlos Alarcón, Vice-minister of Justice during the Mesa Administration), it makes no difference whether the answer is “yes” or “no”. This, because the process of administrative decentralization of the Bolivian State will follow its own path. In other words the correct answer to the Autonomous Referendum should be “maybe”. From the Voting Masses to the Carnival Crowd End of February 2006 To Raúl Prada Alcoreza, the current popular government “presents itself as the political conclusion of the movements”. According to the signs of mergers among the highest positions in the Executive with the uniforms of the Bolivian carnival, the popular facet of the government is shown as the beginning of a process of movements. During this time of the year, citizens turn once again to the streets –not to protest, but rather to make and hear proposals. The motto is “dance for our right to be happy”. In the highlands as well as the lowlands of Bolivia, the crowd sets aside their rags and dons fancy clothes. Santa Cruz de la Sierra stops being an autonomous territory and returns to its royalist standing – it is a city governed by “queens”, each with their own court and armies. In La Paz, “el Pepino”, “el Kusillo” and “el Chuta” (harlequins of noble birth who do not suffer over fair Columbines) dominate water war; on the streets of Oruro the diablos abandon the depths of the mine and dance to the Virgin of the Mine, accompanied by the dark-skinned kings, Tobas natives and the ever present doctorcitos (decent-looking lawyers with a bad reputation). It is now that the United Nations Development Program should draft its Human Development Report and catapult Bolivia to the first places among developed countries, based on the sums allocated per capita to the festivities of the carnival.
The Decathlon of the Bolivian New Deal February 1 - 12, 2006 In his speech during the transmission of power before the Congreso Nacional de la República (National Congress of the Republic), President Evo Morales revealed an interesting management program called “the new social pact” based on a “realdialogue without submission, without conditions”. It is organized as follows: - Pass the Summons to the Constituent Assembly Act and the Autonomous Referendum Act.
- Not only nationalize but also industrialize natural gas, oil, mineral and forest resources.
- Apply a strong austerity policy.
- Change policies on land ownership. Lands which fulfill a socio-economicfunctionshall be respected; non-productive lands will have to be returned by their owners to the State through the channel of dialogue.
- Start a literacy teaching campaign.
- Launch a campaign to give personal identification documents to all citizens, especially to those who live in the countryside.
- Eradicate corruption
- Create a Bank of Development to support communal enterprises, cooperatives and associations of small-scale entrepreneurs.
- Start a campaign in the International Community in order to achieve the total cancellation of the foreign debt of Bolivia.
- Guarantee investments of private companies that are partners of the State “but do not own their natural resources”… and ensure that these companies have the right to recover the sums they invested and to profit. “We merely want that said profit be earned through the principle of equilibrium, that the State, the people, benefit”.
The ten objectives of the Morales Administration are based on the principle of public management created in the Lacandona jungle (Chiapas), “to command obeying the people”.
December 28, 2005 – Ten days have passed since the historic 12/18.
As yet, despite expectations, no significant progress has been made to complete the first group of citizens with the necessary expertise to make the Morales Administration more dynamic as of January 22, 2006. The sectors that carry greater weight (school teachers, unionized farmers and miners) have already sent their petition lists, among which the demand to set the minimum wage at 6200 bolivianos (775 US dollars) stands out – the average income being 913 bolivianos (114 US dollars).
After the emblematic meeting in the Bolivian orient, President-elect Morales manifested his intention to start an international tour at once, including a visit to Cuba on December 30, 2005, and a meeting with Fidel Castro; Spain on January 3, 2006 and starting conversations with Zapatero, above all to define the future of Repsol and other existing Spanish investments in Bolivia (hopes are to avoid the Eyzaguirre effect in Chile, in 2004; Holland on January 5, 2006, where he shall meet Nelson Mandela; and finally, Brazil on January 13, 2006, where together with Da Silva he shall make up work commissions to organize a South American New Deal.
There is an intensive control of the streets to prevent the sale of adulterated fireworks or more destructive fireworks, that usually come from China. The rainy season has begun. December 27, 2005
Bolivia is experiencing the particularity of having two presidents simultaneously. In other circumstances this would mean chaos and confrontation, yet in the post-elections unitary Republic of Bolivia, this period is known as the Transition. Evo Morales Ayma, the Aymara politician, the farmer and union leader, was elected by 53.7% of the votes cast on December 18 out of a total of 2,873,231 citizens entitled to vote, according to estimates of the Corte Nacional Electoral (the National Electoral Court).
The 18th will be known as an exceptional Sunday by historians of the social movement. Three years ago, the leader of Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement towards Socialism) came second in the elections to reorganize the Executive and the Legislative, an unexpected result for all protagonists of the Bolivian democracy. Had the ruling coalition interpreted this event correctly, it could have created an alliance between two ideologically opposed sectors: the bourgeoisie and the peculiar Bolivian proletariat. However this did not happen.
Between 2002 and 2003, the Executive gradually isolated itself from sector representatives; public policies were designed with an excessively centralized logic; the society responded by shifting political management to the streets; and the first vacuum in power was generated, with the fall of the Sanchez de Lozada administration. Vice-President Mesa took over the presidential mandate with an agenda established by social movements. For their fulfillment, the petition lists required symbiotic efforts between the Executive and the Legislative, mainly to clarify the key issues of energy resources management and of progress made in transforming the unitary Republic into a Republic with autonomous regions. Yet President Mesa had a very small circle of persons he trusted in the Executive, ergo, a second vacuum in power was in formation.
This time, he who was until then president of the Supreme Court of Justice assumes the Presidency of the nation. His main task was to ensure a new election process that would reorganize the Executive and the Legislative, only now it included the possibility to elect the regional authorities known as Prefects, thereby making a constitutional pirouette which would guarantee the tranquility of the social and regional sectors in the general elections. Almost ten days after the elections, the president-elect travels to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the epicenter of hard-line autonomic movements, at the other development pole of the Republic of Bolivia. He starts a dialogue with the neo-liberal and anti-State business sectors, seeking consensus, “the Evo’s consensus”; there was a positive reaction, the first alliance was established; opposites attract.
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