Venezuela attracted worldwide media attention this month when the nation voted on Dec.2 to reject Chávez’s much awaited new constitution. The measure was defeated 51% to 49% by plebiscite, contrary to the world’s expectations. As the world turns its attention away from the region, Bolivia enters the final stages of another constitutional reform project that may prove much more volatile. 

 

On the surface, the constitutions deal with similar issues. The declared purpose of each is to alter the current government structure to include previously marginalized groups in the polity. But the documents differ in terms of substance.  

The principal alterations of the government structure proposed by the chavista constitution were the extension of presidential terms from six to seven years, the removal of presidential term limits, and the displacement of governmental authority from state governments to chavista-dominated communal councils. Such reforms amounted to a centralization of power within the executive branch, at the expense of the already weak and chavista-packed legislative and judicial branches.  

In order to make such reforms palatable, the failed constitution also included a number of social reforms. If passed, the new constitution would have reduced the workday to six hours and provided state pensions for domestic workers, housewives, and street vendors. While such reforms are extremely progressive and beneficial to Venezuela’s impoverished majority, they are out of place in a constitution, the purpose of which is to define the structure and functioning of government. Those who lament the rejection of the constitution’s promised labor reforms should not despair. The current Venezuelan Congress is entirely pro-Chávez, due to the opposition’s boycott against legislative elections, so any of these provisions could be passed as labor laws through traditional channels.

The current draft of the Bolivian charter, on the other hand, proposes major changes in the way that the government will function, without centralizing power in the hands of the executive or doing away with presidential term limits. For Bolivia’s indigenous majority, the new constitution would allow local autonomy, and give indigenous courts equal standing with the European-installed ones. In an appeal to redistribute wealth on a class basis, which affects indigenous Bolivians disproportionately, the new constitution will affirm state ownership of natural resources. The constitution also proposes to make several political reforms, such as the introduction of run-off elections in cases where no candidate secures more than fifty percent of the vote.

For Bolivia, redistributing political power and wealth by means of a new constitution is an explosive issue.  Venezuela is a primarily urban country (88% in 2003), divided principally by class, although it is also ethnically stratified to a great degree. Bolivia is a largely rural country (37% in 2003), sharply divided along ethnic and cultural lines between indigenes and whites. Bolivia – like the rest of the Andean region, and Latin America in general – has traditionally been ruled both politically and economically by a white minority. This legacy of conquest is in the process of being dismantled since the institution of democracy and universal suffrage throughout the region. The affluent, white minority simply cannot compete in an electoral context with universal suffrage in which the majority of the populous wants to vote for candidates that promise to redistribute wealth to them – preferably someone who looks like them. The election of Evo Morales to Bolivia’s presidency in 2006 symbolized the increase in political power of the indigenous population as a result of the installation of free universal suffrage and the popular rejection of neo-liberal reform under previous administrations.  

To further complicate matters, the country is divided regionally between the eastern lowlands, where the country’s hydrocarbon and agricultural wealth lies, and the western highlands, where the indigenous majority and administrative system are located. Provincial leaders are correct to assert that the new constitution will impinge on their current level of autonomy and redistribute wealth away from them. Increased state direction and ownership of the economy also bodes ill for easterners who benefit more from the current system of private enterprise within an ethnically stratified labor system.  The natural decision for them is to secede.

If the constitutional reforms are popular enough to pass the plebiscite and be approved by Congress, then their implementation will almost surely provoke an attempt at secession from one or more of the eastern departments. In such an event, Morales has pledged to retain the union with force, if necessary. The conflict over the Bolivian constitution poses disturbing questions for those with an interest in democratization in Latin America. It may be the case that in a country as ethnically and socio-economically polarized as Bolivia, democratic governance may not be capable of re-channeling violent conflict.  

Sources:

Simon Romero.  “Bolivia’s Leaders Says States’ Dispute Can Be Resolved.”  New York Times, 20 Dec 2007. <<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/world/americas/20bolivia.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin>>

Simon Romero.  “Chávez’s Vision Shares Wealth and Centers Power.”  New York Times 16 Nov 2007.
<<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/world/americas/17venez.html>>

John Crabtree.  “Bolivia’s Controversial Constitution and 2008 Referendum.  Mexidata.Info  <<http://www.mexidata.info/id1651.html>>

World Bank.

See also:  Anjela Jenkins, “Latin American Constitutionalism, A Pattern of One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” and Meghan Giulino, “Insights from Bolivia:  The Challenges of Governance in an Ethnically Divided State,”

both in the IAJ International Update, <<http://www.davisiaj.com>>