This article was received from Project Syndicate, an international not-for-profit association of newspapers dedicated to hosting a global debate on the key issues shaping our world
Bolivia seems to be in danger of falling apart. Support for President Evo Morales, who won 53% of the vote in December 2005, represented a demand for democratic coexistence, social change, and national unity.
Two years later, the country is marked by regional, social, ethnic, and ideological divisions, and its government is confused and disoriented.
Morales passed a constitutional reform that included changes in the conception and role of the state, private property, and management of natural resources and taxes. His opponents have responded by proclaiming their right to self-determination and threatening to boycott the referendum with which he hopes to legalize the reform. Morales’ sympathizers threaten to erect roadblocks.
Only three of Bolivia’s nine departments support the government, while 60% of the population is concentrated in the six other departments, which account for 70% of the country’s territory and two-thirds of its GDP. The government’s desire to impose its will on the majority of the country is therefore potentially dangerous.
Indeed, Bolivia, one of Latin America’s poorest countries, has become increasingly polarized. The conflict is not, as the government claims, between the people and a few oligarchs. The urban population, already 70% and growing rapidly, has begun withdrawing their support from Morales, except in La Paz, El Alto, and Oruro, and in the most unionized sectors. Rural peasants and Indians still support him, as do senior military officials.
The erosion of support for the government is due to its inefficiency: inflation is triple official forecasts, and basic foodstuffs and fuel are scarce and their supply irregular. Investment has been discouraged by the rejection of corporate culture, social and political tension, and uncertainty about the reforms.
Today, Bolivia is being led by its government toward antagonism between Indians and non-Indians, the eastern and western regions, and city and country, exacerbated by insults and actions that are acquiring an increasingly racist and ethnocentric edge. The identity of Bolivia’s indigenous people, who were historically excluded from political, social, and economic life, is beginning to be seen as a synonym for confrontation, violence, and ethnic aggressiveness.
The government is rapidly isolating itself from the regional, civic, and political opposition that, little by little, has been rising to causes such as autonomy, pluralism, the need for consensus, and freedom of expression. The official discourse is entrenched in statism and centralism, with growing disregard for democratic principles and procedures.
The government accuses the opposition of advocating the secession of hydrocarbon-rich territories, threatening them with repression. In turn, the most radical regional opposition groups threaten secession if the central government blocks their demands for greater self-government.
The first consequence of this process has been a transition from legality to arbitrary power. Key institutions, including the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and the Senate of the Republic, are being eroded. The Constituent Assembly, which should build national unity and democratic legitimacy, has been turned into a mechanism for division and absolute power.
The government has had the National Congress surrounded by unionists so that only its ardent supporters can enter for the Senate’s sessions. Similarly, the government cut the department governors’ revenue in order to finance an expanded pension plan and weaken them politically and economically.
The government’s closing of democratic and institutional spaces produces responses of a proportional and equivalent force, which in turn tends to expand the political conflict toward areas where force and violence prevail.
A presidential order recalling the unionist, police, and army troops is urgently needed to avoid greater tragedy (there have already been 30 deaths in the last two years) and create conditions for dialogue and a democratic covenant with regional, civic, and political opposition forces. Otherwise, the referendum to ratify the government’s proposed “MAS (Movement for Socialism) constitution” will only fuel more strife.
Two-thirds of Bolivians are dissatisfied with the way the Constituent Assembly has carried out its work, and a majority believes that the constitutional text is illegal.
In this conflict, both sides have raised their bets, and their threats could become a reality. But this is not inevitable, above all because Aymaras and non-Aymaras, Indians and non-Indians, will continue to work to preserve unity in democracy as the basis for a more just future.