Autonomy referendums in two Bolivian states yesterday could boost a movement to decentralize authority and block Bolivian President Evo Morales' populist reforms.
Morales’ quest to empower Bolivia’s long-oppressed Indian majority has alienated mixed-race residents in the nation’s eastern lowlands, fueling old regional grudges against a government centered in the western capital of La Paz.
The eastern states of Beni and Pando were likely vote yesterday to declare autonomy from the national government, following the lead of neighboring Santa Cruz, a hotbed of anti-Morales sentiment where 86 percent of voters opted for autonomy earlier this month.
PHOTO: EPA
Morales has dismissed all three referendums as illegal “surveys.” Organized by the pro-autonomy state governments, yesterday’s referendums were to be monitored by few observers and likely boycotted by the president’s supporters.
Still, the Bolivian tried to stave off the symbolic rejection of his government, making a rare trip on Friday to Pando’s remote capital of Cobija to deliver a new fleet of ambulances and announce a hastily assembled US$6 million infrastructure project.
In a country bitterly divided over Morales’ leftist policies, the eastern autonomy movement has replaced traditional political parties as his chief opposition. Deep regional ties have allied poor and sparsely populated Beni and Pando with wealthy Santa Cruz, and a fourth state, Tarija, holds an autonomy vote on June 22.
While the autonomy declarations call for steps toward a federalist model similar to the US, including the creation of locally elected state assemblies, they also seek more politically charged goals.
Statutes passed in Santa Cruz and on the ballot in Beni and Pando would protect huge cattle ranches and soy plantations from expropriation under Morales’ ambitious land reform. Santa Cruz also voted to withhold a bigger share of its natural gas reserves, which Morales needs to finance his reforms, although the state has yet to enforce the rule.
The autonomy movement has also stolen momentum from Morales’ central project, a draft constitution that would grant indigenous groups greater power.
While that document languishes on the shelf — it cannot become law until approved in a still unscheduled national referendum — the eastern lowland states are racing to sell Bolivians on their rival vision of a decentralized country.
“The constitution has not been put before the people,” while autonomy statutes are already up for vote, Beni governor Ernesto Suarez told La Razon newspaper. “They will be approved, and they will have an enormous legitimacy.”
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