New Constitution Passes in Bolivia: Election results show a divided country

Bolivia will see a new day on January 27, 2009. A day in which a process of more than 2 years comes to an end with a brand new consitution. Now begin the serious challenges; eradicating poverty, increasing investment in national industries, creating jobs and strenghtneing democracy and human rights.

Coverage from BBC, New York Times, and CBC:

Bolivians Back “New” Constitution – BBC

Bolivia’s New Constitution – NYT

Bolivians back new, pro indigenous constitution – CBC

Expect more coverage to appear once the final count of ballots has taken place.

Liberalitas Notes:

1. The political divide in the country remains very clear. The constitution passed in four provinces and was defeated in four provinces. In all cases by large margins. The province of Chuquisaca remained too close to call at this time. Support for the constitution in La Paz and Oruro surpassed the 70 percent mark. In Beni and Santa Cruz the rejection to the constitution was higher than 60 percent. The graph shows the provinces that voted against the constitution and those that voted for it (Dark red was against). Chuquisaca, which has not been called yet, is province number 2.

2. Bolivians of all colours, ethnic groups, regions, departments, and political parties welcome change and want it. They just don’t seem to like Morales’ approach to politics. Support for a parallel question asking Bolivians if they supported a limit on the amount of land one can own was high in every single province of the country. the same departments that voted against the constitution in high margins, supported the land ownership limits, possibly indicating that the policies are not what is driving the east away from Morales but the politics.

3. Unless Bolivian political leaders are able to deliver a new national pact and move forward together, the country can be headed into further political problems and a weakening of Bolivian democracy. The election set for December is the next stage for the political divide in the country to surface. The question is whether or not anything will change in the nation’s voting patterns in only 12 months.

4. Support for Morales decreased throughout the country and Morales has lost the Urban vote (more on this on a separate blog posts).
Embedded video from CNN Video

Bolivia set to vote this weekend amidst division

Morales is seen as likely to win the divisive referendum on Sunday, but tensions that have riven the country along geographic, racial and class lines are not expected to go away.

If anything, they may only intensify as the scene would be set for early elections in December.

Already, the country has flirted with unrest bordering on civil war in September, during which 20 indigenous government supporters were killed in a northern state, prompting Morales to slap martial law on the region.

The roots of the conflict have been growing ever since Morales in 2005 became the country’s first indigenous president and set about upending an order inherited from Spanish colonial times and subsequent military regimes that favored Bolivia’s ‘whiter’ citizens.

The opposition, led by state governors in the country’s more prosperous east, fear that Morales’ march towards a socialist state is taking their nation into the orbit of Venezuela’s anti-US president, Hugo Chavez, and further away from social and economic advancement.

Morales and Chavez expelled the US ambassadors to their countries last September, accusing the administration of former US president George W. Bush of interference. Washington retaliated by sending the Bolivian and Venezuelan envoys home.

The United States “wants to finish with our government,” Morales said Thursday, two days after US President Barack Obama took over from Bush.

His comment, before the Bolivian congress, prompted the abrupt departure of the charge d’affaires of the US embassy, Krishna Urs, who had been in the public watching, according to a local radio station.

The new constitution would also scrap the single-term limit for the president, allowing Morales to stand for re-election. He has proposed early legislative and presidential polls in December if the new referendum passes.

The opposition, though running an energetic campaign against the referendum in recent weeks, remains fragmented.

That, and the fact that the indigenous population making up 60 percent of Bolivia’s 10 million people are fierce in standing up for “their” president, point to a probable victory for Morales.

The Carter Center, the US organization founded by former US president Jimmy Carter, is to send a group of observers to join other international monitors to watch over the referendum.

Morales, meanwhile, launched a new state newspaper, Cambio (“Change” in Spanish) just days before the vote, to counter what he sees as anti-government “lies” in Bolvia’s press.

The government already controls a national television network, 16 local radio stations and a news agency.

Reuters

Interesting Blog post on the referendum

Bolivia: U.S. Diplomat Walks Out on Leader’s Speech

Relations between Bolivia and the United States deteriorated further Thursday when the chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy, Krishna Urs, walked out of a speech in Bolivia’s Congress by President Evo Morales. Mr. Urs said he was protesting assertions by Mr. Morales that the United States had improperly interfered in domestic affairs. A spokesman for Mr. Morales said later that Bolivia was hoping for improved relations with the Obama administration. In September, Mr. Morales expelled the American ambassador.

New York Times. Reported by Simon Romero.

God’s Land: Mennonites and land ownership in Bolivia

Came across this excellent radio documentary which briefly reviews the current hardships Mennonites in Bolivia are experiencing as their way of life intersects with the current Bolivian political reality.

From the CBC:
Forty years ago, a group of Canadian Mennonites packed up and headed for Bolivia. They went in search of good farm land and isolation. And that’s what they got. But now, their quiet, comfortable existence has been caught up in a fierce political debate.

According to one study, the majority of arable land in Bolivia is concentrated on just 700 farms leaving many of the country’s indigenous people with little or nothing. Evo Morales has vowed to change that. He’s Bolivia’s first indigenous leader and he’s proposing a series of new laws on land ownership as well as a new constitution that Bolivians will vote on in two weeks. And if those laws pass, the Mennonites — and there are nearly ten thousand of them — could see their way of life disappear.

Freelance broadcaster Sarah Richards traveled to eastern Bolivia to visit these reclusive Mennonite communities. And she’s prepared this documentary about their uncertain future. It’s called God’s Land.

Listen to the documentary on the CBC website. Scroll down to Part 2.

Bolivia’s New Constitution will create “chaos” if approved: Carlos Mesa

Former President of Bolivia, Carlos Mesa, outlines some of the reasons why the new constitution’s approval could be detrimental for the nation.

From Bloomberg.com
By Jonathan J. Levin

Bolivia’s proposed constitutional overhaul will create “chaos” in the Andean nation if it’s approved in a nationwide vote on Jan. 25, former President Carlos Mesa said.

The proposal, spearheaded by current President Evo Morales, would increase the power of the indigenous majority by setting quotas for the representation of ethnic groups in the government. The quotas threaten the rights of other Bolivians, Mesa said at a news conference today at his office in the capital La Paz.

“I will vote ‘no’ for the constitution on Jan. 25,” Mesa said. “The construction of a plural democracy is based in the free and equal election of citizens; this mechanism will generate chaos and inequality.”

Mesa, who governed Bolivia from 2003 to 2005, is running for president against the incumbent Morales in December elections. Morales is the first indigenous leader of the Andean nation and has a 56 percent approval rating, according to a January poll from La Paz-based pollsters Ipsos Apoyo.

Mesa said Morales has polarized Bolivia with policies that favor some groups at the expense of others.

The Morales government seizes land it decides was illegally acquired by large landowners with the aim of eventually redistributing the land to native communities for farms. The government also uses taxes on Bolivia’s natural gas industry to fund stipends for students and senior citizens.

“The government has brought the country to polarization and division like we haven’t lived in decades,” Mesa said. “On Jan. 26 the country will be more polarized and more divided than ever before.”

Bolivia and Venezuela cut ties with Israel over Gaza conflict

Bolivia and Venezuela have become the first countries in the world to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over the conflict in Gaza.

President Evo Morales made the announcement in a speech to diplomats in the government palace in La Paz. He referred to the Israeli offensive in Gaza as a “genocide”.

Morales is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who expelled Israel’s ambassador to his country on January the 6th, in protest over Gaza.

Caracas accused Israel of what it said were “flagrant violations of international law” and of using “state-sponsored terrorism” against the Palestinians.

Israel maintains the offensive is aimed at ending cross-border rocket attacks by militants in Gaza.

UNASUR’s growing pains

Excerpt from a good article by Alexei Barrionuevo from the New York Times. Click here for full article:

“Latin American leaders took another step away from the decades-old orbit of the United States at a meeting here that brought together nearly all of Latin America and the Caribbean, but excluded the United States and Europe.

The 31 Western Hemisphere leaders at a three-day meeting in Brazil included, clockwise from upper left, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Raúl Castro of Cuba, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Evo Morales of Bolivia. The United States was not invited.

And in the process of convening the leaders of 31 countries, Brazil once again flashed its credentials as the undisputed leader of Latin America.

But the host country’s highly popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an ally of the United States, did not prevent the leaders from celebrating the inclusion of Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, and from using the occasion to attack the United States and Europe for their roles in causing the global economic crisis that is roiling this region as well.

“Cuba is returning to where it always should have been,” Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, told reporters. “We are complete.”

The United States became a punching bag at the three-day conference, which ends Wednesday, in this tourist haven in Brazil’s Bahia State. Mr. Castro was hardly alone in assailing the United States and what he called its “neo-liberalist” model for the credit crisis, which is affecting many other economies.

But even as the Latin American leaders spoke of their collective power and growing unity, regional strains have been evident.

In Bolivia, Oscar Ortíz, the president of the Senate and a prominent critic of President Evo Morales, called on Unasur, the new regional body, to investigate further recent killings in northern Bolivia, which a Unasur commission described unequivocally as a massacre.

The region’s leaders continue to struggle to pick a leader for Unasur. Tabaré Vásquez, Uruguay’s president, said in October that he would oppose the nomination of former President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, a stance that reflects the tense relations between the countries in the past year.

Tension has also been increasing between Ecuador and Brazil, with President Rafael Correa of Ecuador expelling executives from Odebrecht, a major Brazilian construction company, and disputing a loan by Brazil’s powerful national development bank, which finances public works projects throughout Latin America.

Independence of the Bolivian Judicial Branch at risk

A Minister of the Bolivian government led by President Evo Morales has stated that the Judicial Branch in Bolivia does not have the ethical or moral authority to be protecting or speaking about the separation and independence of powers. Walker San Miguel, Bolivian Minister of Defense stated that the Supreme Court of Justice is filled with corrupt individuals who are a result of appointments of past governments that include dictators and corrupt presidents.
The Minister’s statements yesterday tried to connect most of the members of the Supreme Court of Justice with a past government or political leader that has been found to be guilty of a crime or alleged to be corrupt. The constant allusions to a lack of ethics and morals within the judicial branch were clearly aimed at discrediting the members of the Court.

Let me be clear, this is not a defense of the members of the Supreme Court of Justice. I do no know what their histories are and am not aware of their past ties to possible cases of corruption. However, the separation of powers and the independence of the judicial branch is one of the fundamental pieces of a healthy democracy. The Organization of American States considers it to be one of the essential elements of democracy and has clearly connected the elements of democracy to the full protection of human rights. An independent and separate judcial branch and supreme court is one of the ways in which we guarantee the defense and protection of rights. Without it, maintaining an effective check on power, a balance of power among the branches of democracy and preventing authoritarian governments from abusing power becomes very difficult.

With that in mind, the Organization of American States and organizations committed to preserving and maintaining democracy and human rights, need to be wary of the comments made by the Bolivian Minister of Defense. Ensuring that the selection of judges and justices is done in a transparent and fair selection process is incredibly important and we have already seen Morales appoint judges without proper consultation of the opposition before. Minster San Miguel’s comments could be a warning sign of future actions the Morales government might want to take against “unethical” and “immoral” judges.

History has taught us that maintaining an institutionalized check on power is important. It is how we prevent dictatorships from taking place and how we ensure that our basic freedoms are not violated. Let’s keep history’s lessons in our minds as Bolivia continues to struggle through a tense political time.

Martial Law lifted in Bolivia

March for Peace in Pando

Bolivian President Evo Morales ended martial law in the northern province of Pando on Sunday more than two months after government supporters were killed in the region as a wave of political violence swept the country.

The decision made by Morales, finally brings the current constitutional referendum in line with the Bolivian Referendum law, which clearly states that a referendum cannot be called with martial law in place. Morales, however, decided to ignore this “minor” detail, which restricts the civil liberties of Bolivian citizens in Pando, until last night. His signing of the referendum law in October with martial law in place in Pando is on very dubious legal standing.

Earlier this month, the Bolvian electoral court said the law calling for the referendum states the vote cannot take place if civil liberties are restricted anywhere in the country.

What needs to be a priority for this government is to identify, in a transparent and unbiased manner, who the indviduals responsible for the deaths of September are and have the full weight of the law brought upon them. It is not clear how many people were killed in clashes between backers of Morales and anti-government groups in Pando, but local media estimates between 15 and 20.

Bringing peace and reconciliation to Pando will not be easy but it is possible. To do so however, the inflammatory language that Morales continues to use against all those who oppose him, needs to stop… and the same goes for the opposition.

Living la vida coca…

The announcement that Bolivia will not allow the recently expelled Drug Enforcement Agency officers into the country came on the same week Morales made a whole big hoopla about trying to create a positive working relationship with President-Elect Barack Obama.

This should reeeaaally help. Talk about terrible politics.