General elections will take place in December

Apologies for not having written for a little while; I have had too many distractions lately.

For those of you who haven’t been following Bolivian politics in the last couple of months, you might not know that the approval through referendum last January of a new Constitution established that general elections would take place on December 6. This would give the current president, if he wins, one final term in office instead of the two the new constitution establishes. The acceptance of only one term was one of the last minute compromises Evo Morales had to make back in October in order to unblock the opposition’s refusal to let the constitutional referendum take place.

Now we come to another attempt to paralyse congress. For any public consultation to take place, Congress (or the now renamed plurinational assembly) has to enact a law calling for such consultation. But, as has now become customary, the opposition have dug their heels and refused to support the law, reaching the point of walking out of congress last week. The reasons are many but the real intention has always been to make the country as ungovernable as possible preventing, if possible, the elections from taking place.

Two are the main reasons why the opposition wouldn’t approve the law calling for elections in December. The first is that the law would give the vote to the various millions of Bolivians living abroad, a process that would take place through the embassies. The accusation from the opposition is that, the embassies being the institutional representatives of the state, would not guarantee the lack of electoral fraud. What? What other institution can possibly administer the electoral process abroad? I’ve always gone to my embassy…In any case, support abroad is the only hope the opposition has of denting the government’s majority so why oppose it, I wonder. But that’s another matter.

The second reason is that according to them the electoral roll is inaccurate and therefore a tool that permits the government to commit fraud. It is interesting that fraud is an accusation one constantly hears from the opposition when every single legal popular consultation since the election of Evo Morales has had international observers and been declared clean and fair. This, by the way, is more than can be said for previous elections and for the illegal autonomic consultations that took place in a number of opposition departments last year where the president of the civic committee of Santa Cruz is well known for his remarks about how in Santa Cruz they didn’t need any foreigners telling them how to organise a referendum. Fraud? Most definitely.

Back to the electoral roll. It is obvious that there are mistakes in it like in all of them but an audit commissioned by the electoral court to the Organisation of American States last year determined that Bolivia’s roll is 97 % accurate and as such, the best in Latin America. Yet, the only possible way out of this crisis has been for the president, who had joined the social movements in a hunger strike demanding that congress gives the people of Bolivia the right to go to the polls, to divert funds earmarked for a presidential plane to the creation of a new biometric electoral roll for the 4.3 million Bolivians with the right to vote.

So why the opposition? The answer has to be the same as always. This country’s opposition is an obstacle to democratic practice, not a guarantor of it. The opposition belongs to a different political era where votes could be bought and public office was a way to self-enrichment. The opposition’s strategy is not to shape or contribute to the process of change in Bolivia, it is to make the country as ungovernable as possible by any means necessary, including the paralysis of congress and the provocation of civil unrest, while denouncing as loudly as possible to any international institution that will listen, that the country is descending into dictatorship.

No wonder new graffiti near the house says “the electoral census is clean, the right is not”.

Venezuela lifts limits on terms in office

So, Hugo Chavez has won his hotly disputed constitutional amendment, or so it seems according to the BBC’s breaking news only three hours after the end of the vote. The amendment was approved with 54 per cent of the vote.

The vote was to amend a constitution that currently only permits elected officials – including the president but also governors and mayors – to be in power a maximum of two terms. The amendment permits any citizen to become a candidate as many times as he or she wants.

Why exactly this brings the country closer to a dictatorship – as the opposition media in Venezuela have been moaning about for weeks – escapes me. The same howls against Chavez’s ‘dictatorship’ have been made in Bolivia where the opposition now claim that president Morales wants to perpetuate himself in power. Lies, lies and more lies.

Nobody, however, seems concerned with the fact that president Uribe of Colombia, that great ambassador for democracy, is keen on making the same constitutional amendment. Nor has anyone told the Spanish Euro MP who was paraded by the Venezuelan opposition in front of their TV channels to outrage the country with accusations of dictatorship that there are no limits to the time a leader serves in Spain.

In fact, there are no limits to the time served by prime ministers in Britain – how long was there Margaret Thatcher? – German chancellors (how about Helmut Kohl?) or, in fact, 17 of the 27 countries of the European Union. So why exactly this is a problem is a mystery to me, especially when Venezuela has had more consultations in the last 10 years – all internationally regarded as perfectly honest and clean – than ever before in its history. Could it be that all these voices against Chavez simply don’t like him? I wonder.

Dark clouds gather around MAS and the new Bolivian constitution

Today Bolivia enacts the most participatory and democratic constitution in its history. This, however, does not guarantee that the immediate future will be trouble free.

Kepa Artaraz

In a clever play on words on the famous slogan Evo cumple, Bolivia cambia (Evo meets his promises, Bolivia changes) the main headline in this month’s Le Monde diplomatique, Bolivian edition, added a question mark to the end.

Is Bolivia really changing?, goes the argument, when, a top member of MAS and president of the nationalised oil company YPFB, Mr. Santos Ramirez, is embroiled in a corruption scandal brought to the surface when a ccompany employee was assassinated whilst carrying $450,000 in a suitcase?

Details of this event are yet to be clarified but the symbolic impact of a scandal that includes assassination, missing millions, corruption and bribery cannot be underestimated. If Bolivia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International, current government efforts to refound the country with higher moral standards than in the past, appear to have come unstuck with this incident.

It is a shame because today marks the beginning of Bolivia’s new period in history with the enactment of the new constitution approved on 25th January. As the president, accompanied on the stage in the city of el Alto by representatives from all the social movements – true protagonists of Bolivia’s process of change that delivered the presidency to Evo Morales in 2005 – opposition forces were hard at work, not to contribute to the creation of a new Bolivia, but to derail the process of change as they have done since 2005.

The day was suitably grey and rainy and although this did not dampen the spirits of the many tens of thousands gathered to witness the beginning of a new era in Bolivia’s history, dark clouds are already gathering ahead.

Now begins a battle for the presidency and control of the two chambers in the new plurinational assembly in the new December elections that can in turn deliver the detailed legislation needed to make a reality of the aspirations enshrined in the new constitution. It will be a bumpy ride.

Now even God takes sides on the constitutional referendum

You might have noticed from my previous post that I have a real problem with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and its position with regard to the new Bolivian constitution that will be approved on 25th January. Not only has Cardinal Julio Terrazas openly confirmed himself in his opposition to this government by keeping a strict silence on the massacre perpetrated in Pando last September and by openly criticising the government on a numerous occasions.

This week, the frenetic campaign as we near the referendum on the new constitution on Sunday 25th January took a dramatic increase in its demagoguery and in the number of blatant lies and accusations that the opposition are prepared to throw in a desperate last minute attempt to derail the process of change.

The blatant lies from the extreme racist right wing are numerous. Among them we can find the following, from the most outrageous, to the ridiculous:

a)This is a constitution written by Hugo Chavez and other ‘communists’ in the government

b)The new constitution will close all private schools, forbid inheritance rights and take all land away from private ownership to put it in the hands of the state

c)The new constitution will impose indigenous forms of justice on all Bolivians

d)The new constitution is centralising and denies autonomic status to the regions

Lies, lies and more lies. Some of these appear in the spot below:




But what we have seen on Bolivian TV screens this week is a barrage of adverts from the opposition asking for a NO vote to the constitution that appeal to the divine authority of God and claim, among other things, that this constitution attempts against God, and that it makes those who approve of it accomplices of sin.

So, it appears that God has taken sides on the debate. Or, will it not be that the opposition has, in the words of MAS MP Gustavo Torrico, transformed itself from neo-fascist to neo-pharisee?

A year on, those killed in La Calancha - Sucre, have found no justice

One year ago yesterday (24 November) three people were killed in Sucre during an escalation of violence by those who were demanding that the city is given full capital status.

In fact, the campana por la capitalia, as it became known, came out of nowhere to the surprise of many. It was, in retrospect, the last attempt by a virulent opposition to the government based in the lowlands, to derail the constituent assembly, elected for the purpose of writing a new constitution for the refoundation of Bolivia.

And this they did very well. After the events of the day in which hordes of young people commanded by the ‘civic’ committee of Sucre and led by key personalities in the city such as the major and the university vice chancellor, hundreds of people attacked the police station, stole dozens of cars and weapons and set fire to the prison, before attempting to invade the palace where the constituent assembly was in session.

The day’s events are yet to be fully clarified, in part because of the refusal to collaborate with any investigations on the part of the city’s leadership. The one fact that is known is that two people were killed by bullets not used by the police or the military.

What is shameful is the way in which, one year on, the events, and the dead, have been appropriated by the same virulent, unpleasant, and deeply racist opposition to the current government that organised the violence in the first place, and presented them as ‘our martyrs’ in order to launch a campaign against the new constitution that will be approved in referendum next January.

And so it was that a demonstration yesterday repeated the same chants of “Esto es Sucre carajo! Sucre se respeta!” that have become characteristic in the city and that we would witness again on the racist attacks against indigenous people of 24th May 2008. These events were witnessed and recorded by local theatre director Cesar Brie. His film, “Ofendidos y humillados”, gives a pretty clear idea of the type of people we are talking about here.

The ‘golpe cívico prefectural’: An attempted coup with a difference

In what was a unique event in Bolivian political history, on 10th August more than 67% of the Bolivian population voted in support of the president’s administration, winning in 95 of the total 112 provinces of the country. At the same time, the prefects of the main opposition regions were also confirmed in their posts; Costas in Santa Cruz, Suárez in Beni, Fernández in Pando and Cossio in Tarija.

The size of the victory was enough for the president to call for a referendum on the draft constitution that was the result of over 18 months of work by a constitutional assembly and which the opposition prefects did so much to block and derail during the first two years of Morales’s administration.

What happened at this point was, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps not unexpected but not for that less shocking. Following a well-coordinated move and orchestrated by the prefecturas of the dissident regions, violent and armed groups of thugs who call themselves movimiento cívico went on the rampage and took over all manner of NGO offices-seen as supporters of the country’s process of change-institutional buildings, including of companies that have been nationalised under the current government like the telecommunications one Entel, and buildings belonging to anyone suspected of having sympathies with the current government. In addition, a number of terrorist attacks took place against gas pipes exporting gas to Brazil, the houses of peasant leaders were firebombed, and individuals were chased from their homes.

The high point of this organised violence took place on 11 September in Pando when a paramilitary group blockaded the road outside the municipality of Porvenir, stopping a number of lorries carrying men, women and children, and shooting at them indiscriminately. The latest balance is 18 dead, with 25 disappeared and hundreds injured, dispossessed and exiled in La Paz.

This is the point at which the international community, led by UNASUR, called an emergency meeting hosted by current president Bachelet and expressed its full support to the democratic process in Bolivia. This timely intervention might well have taken some of the oxygen away from the oligarchy-funded and US supported armed insurrection, what MAS has referred to as the golpe civico prefectural, as the presidetn denounced on 23 September at the UN. We have to remember that 11 September was also the date when the US ambassador in Bolivia was declared persona non grata and given 72 hours to leave the country after being accused of supporting the armed insurrection. You might wonder what the US role has been in all this given that American Airlines continues to have an irregular service citing civil unrest (see my previous blog) and American authorities are telling their citizens to get out of the country.

However, the UNASUR intervention also led to a move in favour of dialogue with the political leaders of the opposition, a process of dialogue that international observers have monitored and participated in. This is why these prefects have seen their violent manipulation recompensed with an opportunity to dialogue with the government and to negotiate those aspects of the draft constitution they object to the most; the question of the level of resources from the export of gas and oil they will receive and the scale of powers and competencies they will hold in an autonomic future.

The deadline expired on Sunday 5th October. We waited with baited breath for the press conference that would announce that both parts had reached an agreement after 10 and 12 hour long daily sessions. The prefects emerged, flanking both president and vice-president, they waved to the cameras and photographers, and left. In the post-mortem that followed the failed process of negotiation, it was clear that nothing MAS could offer the opposition-and it offered a lot of autonomic competencies including legislative powers- would be enough to a group that exists only in so far as it opposes. If it ceases to oppose, it ceases to exist because it obeys to landowning families and agro-business interests who will never give up their lands for a process of land reform, no matter how illegitimate their ownership.

The key for the future might be in bringing the individual prefects round by feeding their political ambitions while expecting them to perform the political tightrope process of convincing some of their most radical bases that this is in their interest. For the time being, however, where does this leave us? Basically, it is now for Congress to call for a referendum on the draft constitution, something for which it needs two thirds of the votes in a single vote that brings both houses together. MAS does not have this level of representation so we can expect a lot of political manoeuvring there.

In the meantime, we are bracing ourselves for an occupation of La Paz by thousands of marchers representing the social movement for change. From different parts of the country, they are planning to converge on La Paz next week to demand that the draft constitution is put to the vote on a national referendum by, among other things, surrounding congress until this happens. We have already started the process of stockpiling food for the coming siege of La Paz.

On another note, recent municipal elections in Brasil have given Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party, PT, a landslide win with a greater share of the vote than previously. Only three main cities are having to go to a second round; Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where there is no clear winner. The result of these votes will inform the future battle for the presidency of the country which will determine whether the PT continues in power with Lula’s successor or whether the main opposition party, the social democratic party of former president Cardoso will take the baton.

See http://www.kaosenlared.net/noticia/cronologia-golpe-estado-anunciado-golpe-civico-prefectural-bolivia

Another week in Bolivia

Just as ever more gruesome details of the massacre of peasants in Pando continue to emerge, the opposition media - that is to say, most of the Bolivian media - have chosen to ignore these disgraceful events and the survivors. Instead, they have been crying foul of the police’s arrest of the main accused, Leopoldo Fernández, whom we introduced in our previous posting. In addition, they have concentrated on the arrest of a police woman who is accused of having given the critical sign to shooters to start the massacre, and of two other people who have been charged with terrorist charges for blowing up a gas pipe used to export gas to Brazil last August.

These are the ‘canalladas’ (cynical lies) - as well-known journalist Amalia Pando has called them - that have been used by the opposition to refer to the events in Pando:

-The massacre was not such thing. It was a confrontation by two armed groups. The fact that only peasant men, women and children on their way to town have died has to do with the fact that the other side were bad a shooting.

-The video circulating on You Tube (see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvRGemlv3k) is fake. It has been doctored by government agents to put the opposition on a bad light. Would you agree??




Instead, accusations have been flying from the opposition that the government is persecuting them and their supporters (read Leopoldo Fernandez, or Mr Vaca, who has confessed his part on the gas pipe attack). Senate members of the opposition have even had the audacity to go on record to show their dissatisfaction with the UNASUR-led human rights commission investigating the events in Pando. So they have proceeded to send their own ‘investigative commission’, but only to Brazil, to visit their political supporters who fled after committing or instructing the killings.

To top it all, the opposition prefects, whose violent shenanigans that culminated in the massacre opened up a series of talks with government about those aspects of the proposed Constitution they find less palatable, have used this supposed ‘persecution’ to pull out of talks, further delaying the approval of a new draft Constitution and throwing the entire process into disarray.

Just another political week in Bolivia.

At the same time, Rafael Correa, a political outsider who two years ago surprised everyone by winning the Ecuadorean presidency, has managed to lead the process of writing a new constitution that was approved with a large majority in a national referendum that took place last Sunday 28th September. He calls it ‘a constitution that will bring 21st century socialism to Ecuador’. I bet MAS are looking north with envy right now.