Bolivia Divided Over Morales' Reforms
LA PAZ, Bolivia
President Evo Morales on Friday proposed shutting down the opposition-controlled Senate, the latest step in a drive to expand his legal powers and push through further populist reforms.
Morales has been emboldened by a series of political triumphs, but Bolivians are divided over his plans to redistribute power and wealth to the country's poor indigenous majority.
The president suggested Bolivia's new constitution should eliminate the Senate, forcefully rebuking conservative senators who have walked out of the chamber in a bid to block his sweeping land reform.
"Those that do not defend the poor or the majority are generally in the Senate," Morales said Friday at a news conference. "Why do we need a Senate where there is still a majority of neo-liberals who will boycott it?"
Six of Bolivia's nine state governors have angrily broken ties with his government. Anti-Morales protesters this week packed the center of Santa Cruz, the country's richest city, to demand greater local autonomy.
Even the owner of Bolivia's Burger King franchises is on a hunger strike to protest the president's handling of the assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution.
But groups of Indians, landless peasants and coca farmers are marching toward the capital, La Paz, for a mass demonstration next week to support the nation's first Indian president and to demand passage of his land reform bill.
Morales, who finished 25 points ahead of his nearest challenger in last year's presidential election, believes he has a powerful mandate to transform Bolivia and dismisses opposition protests.
Morales has made no secret of his intention to end centuries of dominance by a European-descended elite and redistribute power and wealth.
The president's fortunes were boosted on Oct. 28 when foreign oil companies bowed to his nationalization decree and signed contracts giving the government a majority of their Bolivian revenues.
The signings reversed Morales' sinking poll numbers and even his bitterest rivals acknowledged the contracts were a boon for South America's poorest country.
In recent weeks, his government also has celebrated a U.S. proposal to extend a key trade agreement and the Inter-American Development Bank's decision to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars of Bolivia's foreign debt.
The accumulated political capital is burning a hole in Morales' pocket.
This week, Morales asked Congress to pass a bill giving him power to oust state governors -- two-thirds of whom hail from opposition parties and have been some of his most vocal critics.
Days earlier, delegates from the president's Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, voted to give their slim majority complete control of the assembly writing a new Bolivian constitution -- casting aside months of negotiations with conservative delegates.
The party's majority in the lower house of Congress also pushed through Morales' long-stalled land bill, which would allow the government to seize private lands it deems unproductive for redistribution to the landless poor. Conservative lawmakers walked out in protest.
Critics say Morales' actions are all too reminiscent of past Bolivian strong-arm leaders.
"The rhetoric that MAS is bringing a new change is regrettably false," political analyst Enrique Urquidi said. "They're showing the same attitude that governments have had here for 20 years."
It's unclear whether Morales' recent moves will stick.
The final draft of Bolivia's new constitution must still be approved by a two-thirds vote of the assembly, so MAS must eventually include opposition delegates in the process.
Both land reform and the power to fire state governors face a difficult fight in the opposition-controlled Senate.
Morales has said that if senators block land reform, his supporters will use protests and blockades to pressure lawmakers. Marchers on their way to the capital seem ready to oblige.
"To the land speculators and senators who don't want to pass land reform, we say: Here are the people of Bolivia!" Indian leader Pedro Nuni shouted at a rally in Cochabamba, 150 miles southeast of La Paz. "These are the true indigenous brothers and sisters who have always fought for their land, and will continue to fight until the ultimate price."
But on Tuesday in Santa Cruz, 400 miles east of La Paz, anti-Morales demonstrators waved the state's green-and-white flag and declared they would never allow the president to take their land or remove their governor from office.
Some carried banners suggesting they were ready to break away. "Now is the time for independence," one of them read.
President Evo Morales on Friday proposed shutting down the opposition-controlled Senate, the latest step in a drive to expand his legal powers and push through further populist reforms.
Morales has been emboldened by a series of political triumphs, but Bolivians are divided over his plans to redistribute power and wealth to the country's poor indigenous majority.
The president suggested Bolivia's new constitution should eliminate the Senate, forcefully rebuking conservative senators who have walked out of the chamber in a bid to block his sweeping land reform.
"Those that do not defend the poor or the majority are generally in the Senate," Morales said Friday at a news conference. "Why do we need a Senate where there is still a majority of neo-liberals who will boycott it?"
Six of Bolivia's nine state governors have angrily broken ties with his government. Anti-Morales protesters this week packed the center of Santa Cruz, the country's richest city, to demand greater local autonomy.
Even the owner of Bolivia's Burger King franchises is on a hunger strike to protest the president's handling of the assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution.
But groups of Indians, landless peasants and coca farmers are marching toward the capital, La Paz, for a mass demonstration next week to support the nation's first Indian president and to demand passage of his land reform bill.
Morales, who finished 25 points ahead of his nearest challenger in last year's presidential election, believes he has a powerful mandate to transform Bolivia and dismisses opposition protests.
Morales has made no secret of his intention to end centuries of dominance by a European-descended elite and redistribute power and wealth.
The president's fortunes were boosted on Oct. 28 when foreign oil companies bowed to his nationalization decree and signed contracts giving the government a majority of their Bolivian revenues.
The signings reversed Morales' sinking poll numbers and even his bitterest rivals acknowledged the contracts were a boon for South America's poorest country.
In recent weeks, his government also has celebrated a U.S. proposal to extend a key trade agreement and the Inter-American Development Bank's decision to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars of Bolivia's foreign debt.
The accumulated political capital is burning a hole in Morales' pocket.
This week, Morales asked Congress to pass a bill giving him power to oust state governors -- two-thirds of whom hail from opposition parties and have been some of his most vocal critics.
Days earlier, delegates from the president's Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, voted to give their slim majority complete control of the assembly writing a new Bolivian constitution -- casting aside months of negotiations with conservative delegates.
The party's majority in the lower house of Congress also pushed through Morales' long-stalled land bill, which would allow the government to seize private lands it deems unproductive for redistribution to the landless poor. Conservative lawmakers walked out in protest.
Critics say Morales' actions are all too reminiscent of past Bolivian strong-arm leaders.
"The rhetoric that MAS is bringing a new change is regrettably false," political analyst Enrique Urquidi said. "They're showing the same attitude that governments have had here for 20 years."
It's unclear whether Morales' recent moves will stick.
The final draft of Bolivia's new constitution must still be approved by a two-thirds vote of the assembly, so MAS must eventually include opposition delegates in the process.
Both land reform and the power to fire state governors face a difficult fight in the opposition-controlled Senate.
Morales has said that if senators block land reform, his supporters will use protests and blockades to pressure lawmakers. Marchers on their way to the capital seem ready to oblige.
"To the land speculators and senators who don't want to pass land reform, we say: Here are the people of Bolivia!" Indian leader Pedro Nuni shouted at a rally in Cochabamba, 150 miles southeast of La Paz. "These are the true indigenous brothers and sisters who have always fought for their land, and will continue to fight until the ultimate price."
But on Tuesday in Santa Cruz, 400 miles east of La Paz, anti-Morales demonstrators waved the state's green-and-white flag and declared they would never allow the president to take their land or remove their governor from office.
Some carried banners suggesting they were ready to break away. "Now is the time for independence," one of them read.
posted by Alice at
Friday, November 24, 2006
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