Development & Aid, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

POLITICS-BOLIVIA: Government Up Against the Wall

Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Dec 1 2004 (IPS) - The Bolivian government is facing opposition from all sides, with Congress blocking its draft budget, and workers and community groups staging roadblocks, protests and strikes.

Some of the roadblocks thrown up at border crossings Monday by truckers who are demanding the elimination of the 13 percent Value Added Tax remain in place, although the government announced the start of talks to resolve the conflict.

Business groups and other civic organisations in the southeastern department (province) of Potosí declared a 48-hour shutdown starting Wednesday, to call for government measures aimed at a resurgence of the local mining industry. They held a similar stoppage two weeks ago, sharply criticising the government of Carlos Mesa.

In the meantime, the Federation of Community Organisations (FEJUVE) in the sprawling slum city of El Alto, next to La Paz, agreed to put their protests on hold until Dec. 20, to give the government time to address their grievances.

FEJUVE also suspended a general strike it was planning this week in El Alto, a hotbed of labour activism and street demonstrations that was at the centre of the month-long protests that led to the toppling of the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in October 2003, after at least 70 people were killed when the security forces were called out to quash the demonstrations.

"This is a ‘war’ designed to wear the government down, rather than a coup d’etat," said Minister of the Presidency José Antonio Galindo, referring to the protests and political opposition – which he blamed on unidentified "political factions" – that have the government up against the wall.

Over the past week, three explosions targeted the Defence Ministry, a military barracks, and a TV station belonging to President Mesa.

"The government finds itself in a complicated situation, but it is not temporary or circumstantial, because the administration has been faced with constant social conflicts," political analyst María Teresa Zegada commented to IPS.

The Mesa administration, which took office after Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign last year, is also confronting difficulties on the economic front, because Congress voted down its draft budget.

Legislators are opposed to a 250 million dollar cut in social spending, which would make it impossible to raise the salaries of public employees.

The government said the proposed reduction in social spending is due to the uncertainty regarding future tax revenues from the oil and gas industry caused by the delay in approving a new energy law.

The Mesa administration had projected extra revenues of 90 million dollars from the application of a tax on foreign oil companies that would have gradually increased.

But a group of leftist lawmakers want to replace the existing contracts with the foreign firms operating in Bolivia with new ones, under which the royalties paid by the companies would abruptly increase from the current 18 percent to 50 percent.

Government officials argue, however, that the contracts cannot be modified because of commitments undertaken by the Bolivian government to respect foreign investment, as part of bilateral accords with the countries where the oil companies are based.

The main foreign investors in Bolivia, which has the second largest reserves of natural gas in South America after Venezuela – 53 trillion cubic feet – are from Brazil, the United States, Britain and Spain.

Congress has opposed the government’s version of a new energy law, which has delayed its passage. The question is scheduled to be debated again on Dec. 7.

In the meantime, Bolivia’s natural gas wealth has failed to improve living conditions in what remains South America’s poorest country.

According to the National Institute of Statistics, 61 percent of Bolivia’s 9.2 million people live below the poverty line, with one-third living in extreme poverty. However, other sources put the poverty rate at 70 percent or higher.

Mesa is also facing difficulties in the legal sphere, where the Constitutional Court struck down his appointment of a new attorney-general and nine district attorneys.

The president argued that he was forced to directly designate the judicial authorities, without seeking legislative approval, due to the delays in Congress.

Although some analysts and media outlets have expressed concern over the government’s weakness, sociologist Joaquín Saravia told IPS that over the past year, the continuing conflicts have found channels that lead to solutions, which means there is no threat to democracy.

For her part, Zegada said Bolivia’s democratic system is entering a process of "reconfiguration of the political and party system", which will start on Sunday, when some 4.5 million voters will be eligible to choose mayors and town councillors for 327 municipal governments, from a total of 13,000 different candidates.

Parties and candidates are vying for leadership in the local elections, to position themselves with a view to the 2007 general elections, she said.

Zegada noted that traditionally strong parties like the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) and the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) have taken a low profile in the campaign for the municipal elections, by contrast with increasingly popular newer parties like the Movement Without Fear, led by lawyer Juan del Granado, a former mayor of La Paz who is running for that post again.

Another party that is growing in strength is the Movement to Socialism (MAS), led by indigenous lawmaker Evo Morales, the leader of Bolivia’s coca farmers.

In the 2002 elections, Morales was the presidential candidate who took the second-largest number of votes.

Civic associations and indigenous organisations that have won recognition from the electoral court will also participate in the local elections with their own candidates, for the first time ever.