President Evo Morales Ends Hunger Strike
Victory for Bolivian Leader As Congress Allows His Re-election
Apr 14, 2009
The country’s first indigenous president began his hunger strike last Thursday in support of a new electoral law that shifts more political power into the hands of Bolivia’s indigenous majority. The opposition-controlled Senate was blocking the bill's passage into law despite its approval of more than 60% of voters in late January.
According to an April 14, 2009 article in USA Today, the new electoral law most prominently reserves eight Congressional seats for indigenous groups in the country's general elections, now set for December 6, 2009. The new law also sets standards for voting registration and gives expatriates the right to vote in the general elections.
Constitutional Referendum Attempts to Soothe Social Injustice in Bolivia
Since Mr. Morales’ election to the Presidency three years ago, age-old tensions between the wealthier mixed-race Bolivians and those of the poorer, indigenous majority have only heightened. According to a January 26, 2009 BBC article, it was only 50 years ago in that those of indigenous descent in Bolivia were not even allowed to walk through the central square of La Paz.
Yet January’s referendum, backed by 60% of the population, amends Bolivia’s Constitution in order to soothe the injustices of Bolivia’s colonial past. In addition to allowing Mr. Morales to run for re-election in December 2009, key reforms of the amended Constitution stress the importance of indigenous rights, decentralize political power, and grant indigenous systems of justice the same status as the existing national system.
Racial Cleavages Bleed Into Bolivia's Congressional Debate
It is important to remember, however, that 40% of Bolivians voted against the constitutional referendum. Many Bolivians of mixed-race or European descent are wealthy ranchers who fear that their farms will now fall under state control and their land redistributed to the poor.
To help allay such fears, representatives of Mr. Morales’ Movement for Socialism (or MAS) party have inserted a clause in the referendum that guarantees that the new limit on land ownership will only be retroactive. Nevertheless, many in the wealthy class, as represented by the majority of representatives in the opposition-controlled Senate, fear that an MAS majority in the Senate could shift the balance of power for the worse.
“The ‘No’ vote has put the brakes on the fools who wanted to destroy our country,” said opposition leader Ruben Costas in the aforementioned BBC article, making reference those who had voted “No” to January’s referendum. Other opposition leaders have echoed Mr. Costas' tone of dissent, though they have lost the fight to block the passage of the referendum in the upper house of Bolivia's Congress.
Morales’ Hunger Strike a Success
On the face of it, it seems that the President’s 5-day hunger strike, which has culminated in the Bolivian Congress’ approval of the new electoral law, will begin to bring about the indigenous rights Mr. Morales has diligently fought for since ascending into the nations’ highest political office three years ago.
“Brothers and sisters, the colonial state ends here,” said Morales to cheering crowds as the results of January’s referendum were first announced, according to the previously mentioned BBC article. “Now Bolivia is being re-founded.”
With the success of his hunger strike, it seems that the balance of power is indeed beginning to shift in the direction of the poorer indigenous majority of the country, though it is too soon to tell if Bolivia will peacefully weather this political storm.
 |
