Bolivia:
'A Project For The Liberation Of The Poor’
By Federico Fuentes
06 November, 2007
Green Left
Weekly
“Here in Bolivia, the majority
have realised that the neoliberals have always betrayed us. Now the
people cannot be so easily bought off, there is growing consciousness
and a shift in the attitude of society. That is why it will be difficult
for [the neoliberals] to defeat us now. We will continue governing for
at least 50 to 100 years — some say forever.” This is how
Roman Loayza, head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) group of
delegates to Bolivia’s constituent assembly, described the situation
in Bolivia when Green Left Weekly spoke to him on October 17.
MAS is the party of Bolivian
President Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in Bolivia’s
history, elected in 2005 on a platform of reversing 500 years of colonialism
and genocide against the indigenous majority, and reversing the impact
of 20 years of neoliberalism that has left Bolivia South America’s
poorest nation.
It is his confidence in the
people that gives Loayza hope for the constituent assembly, which has
not met since August and is rapidly approaching its second deadline
of December 14. Its original one-year time frame was extended without
a single article of the new constitution having been voted on.
GLW asked Loayza why the
assembly has faced so many problems. He explained that “the traditional
right-wing parties do not agree with the constituent assembly, they
want to keep fooling the people, turning them against MAS. They don’t
want to accept that they were defeated. They want to wear the people
down, in order to finish off MAS, starting by finishing off the president.
“However, this will
be difficult. Even if they do not allow us to approve the new constitution,
we have the constitutional text, which is being finished off now and
will be presented to the people, and the people will decide.”
‘A political
project of the poor’
When Loayza, together with
Morales, was first elected to parliament in 1997 it marked the entrance
of the indigenous and campesino (peasant) movements onto the political
stage nationally. Two years previously, three of Bolivia’s key
indigenous and campesino organisations, including the United Union Confederation
of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB) headed by Loayza, came together
to construct a “political instrument” that aimed to be “a
political project of the poor, for the liberation of the poor”.
Following the 1997 elections,
the Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (which took
the electorally registered name of MAS) was formed. In 2002, MAS came
second in national elections, with Morales just falling short of winning
the highest vote for president.
Refusing to make alliances
with the traditional parties, MAS won government outright with 53.7%
of the vote in the December 2005 elections, on the back of rising indigenous,
campesino and other social movements. Re-elected as deputy in 2002,
Loayza is generally viewed as representing the more radical wing of
the MAS, largely due to his role as a leader of the CSUTCB during the
2003 and 2005 uprisings.
A plurinational Bolivia
The election of what Loayza
describes as Bolivia’s “first indigenous, originario government”
allowed for the implementation of the two central demands arising from
the struggles of the indigenous majority — the nationalisation
of gas (decreed in May 2006) and the convoking of a constituent assembly
(which began meeting in August 2006). In the election of assembly delegates,
MAS won over 50%.
“[An] indigenous, originario
government signifies a change because until now governments have always
stolen our resources, becoming wealthy at the expense of the poor. We
want to finish off the neoliberal economic model.”
Loayza explained that Bolivia’s
social movements “are proposing a united, plurinational communitarian
social state. Why plurinational? Because the indigenous originario peoples
from the east and west want our nations to be recognised and, having
finally been recognised, to participate in all spheres — political,
economic, social and cultural.”
He said that MAS is “neither
from the traditional left nor the traditional right — we come
out of our own cultural identity” adding, “we want to change
the country because each of the 36 [indigenous] nations has its own
culture, language and beliefs. They live in harmony with Mother Earth.”
However, accepting these differences doesn’t mean division: “to
change the country we want unity”.
Behind the emphasis on indigenous
rights and culture is not the goal of returning to a romanticised past,
but rather an expression of Bolivia’s national revolutionary tradition:
“After the new constitution is approved all authorities will have
to support industrialisation … we could become an industrialised
country, no longer underdeveloped.”
Political commission
Attempting to implement these
changes has placed the indigenous peoples on a collision course with
the old ruling elite. This clash has at times been physical, something
Loayza can personally testify to. Loayza nearly lost his life, spending
two months in a coma, after a scuffle in the assembly resulted in a
fall from a three metre high stage, fracturing his skull.
The right-wing opposition
has fanned the flames of discontent among the people of Sucre (known
as the “white city” for its social composition), where the
assembly is meeting, with the demand that the legislative and executive
powers — which shifted to La Paz in 1899 following a civil war
— return to the city. Violent protests forced the temporary suspension
of the assembly and some MAS delegates were forced into hiding.
To overcome the stalemate,
the government took the initiative of forming a “political commission”
to bring together representatives from all groups in the assembly to
negotiate contentious points and attempt to reach consensus. Having
squandered eight months debating rules of procedure, and then unnecessarily
aggravating tensions by declaring that the issue of the capital could
not be discussed in the assembly, many are wondering how useful the
assembly will ultimately prove to be, and whether it isn’t just
the same old parties once again negotiating the future of the country
among themselves.
A recent poll showed that
nearly two thirds of Bolivians don’t think the assembly will complete
its job by December 14, with support for the assembly dropping to 39%
in October. From the original goal of “re-founding Bolivia”,
discussion has shifted to the more moderate idea of “constitutionalising”
changes begun under Morales, such as the gas nationalisation.
The current stalemate in
the assembly now as many in MAS focusing on ensuring the constitutional
changes include the ability to re-elect presidents to allow for continuity
in the process of change. Despite discontent with the assembly, and
in the face of sustained opposition attacks on Morales, the same poll
puts his support at 62%, an increase of 5% from two months previous.
Loayza told GLW: “The
political commission was formed firstly to seek unity, and afterwards
to discuss the principal issues that have caused the problems, such
as [competing] visions for the country.
“Until now we have
reached consensus on the economic issue: the new constitution will recognise
the state economy, the private economy and the communitarian economy
to benefit the communities … we have also reached agreement on
autonomy” at the departmental (state), municipal and regional
level as well as for indigenous communities, “two important issues”.
While the main opposition
party, Podemos, participated in discussions over autonomy, they did
not sign onto the agreement, nor did they sign onto the subsequent agreement
reached on October 18 over the type of state that Bolivia would become,
which in an attempt to include all views was defined as unitary, social,
plurinational, communitarian, autonomous and decentralised, democratic,
free, independent, sovereign and inter-cultural.
The assembly is yet to reconvene,
with a negotiation team from the political commission travelling to
Sucre to see if local authorities are willing to provide the necessary
safety precautions for delegates to meet. That same day, October 31,
the directorate of the assembly, along with MAS delegates, travelled
to Oruro to investigate the feasibility of transferring the assembly
there.
Loayza told GLW that while
MAS was working hard to get agreement from the two thirds of assembly
delegates needed to approve the final text, “I think we will not
get that unity”. In such a scenario “once we have a constitutional
text we will approve it by majority [in the assembly], and once approved
we will hand it over to the people. If the opposition does not let us
approve it, the people are the sovereigns: they will approve what we
have done.”
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