BOLIVIA: Congressional Failure to Act on President’s Resignation Deepens Chaos

By Franz Chávez Reprint | | Print |

Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Jun 7 2005 (IPS) - Bolivia found itself in a kind of limbo Tuesday, as the legislature has not met to act on Carlos Mesa’s resignation as president, and the heads of the two houses of Congress have not made the decision to step aside and leave Supreme Court chief justice Eduardo Rodríguez as caretaker president, as demanded by protesters and the main opposition party.

Senate president Hormando Vaca Díez had earlier called a joint session of the two houses of Congress for Tuesday to debate the call for a referendum on regional autonomy.

But Mesa’s decision to step down and the fact that the lawmakers have not shown up in Congress indicate that the meeting will not take place, which means the legislature will not discuss the president’s resignation either.

In the midst of the social unrest that has raged for over two weeks, the president offered Monday to resign – for the second time in less than three months – to contribute to the Catholic Church’s efforts to mediate in talks that are seeking a solution to the crisis.

The talks that began over the weekend among the main actors involved in the conflict – political parties, business leaders from the wealthy eastern provinces, trade unions, civil society groups and indigenous associations from central and western Bolivia – are aimed at reaching an agreement to hold early elections.

But none of the potential caretaker presidents has the support needed to replace Mesa, with the exception of Rodríguez.

Under the Bolivian constitution, if the president resigns, he is to be replaced by the vice-president, the president of the Senate, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, or the president of the Supreme Court, in that order. But the choice must be approved by a majority in Congress.

Bolivia has been without a vice-president since Mesa, who was elected to that post in 2002, replaced his predecessor Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), when he resigned and fled the country after a month of protests on Oct. 17, 2003.

And neither Senate president Vaca Díez, of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), nor the head of the lower house, Mario Cossío of the MNR, have the support of the tens of thousands of peasant farmers, workers and teachers demonstrating outside the government palace, demanding the nationalisation of Bolivia’s natural gas and a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

The main opposition party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), led by indigenous lawmaker Evo Morales (the leader of the country’s coca farmers) has recovered lost strength in the past two weeks. On Monday it basically set the rules of the game by demanding the resignations of Mesa, Vaca Díez and Cossío, in order to pave the way for Rodríguez to become interim president.

But so far only Mesa – who was to serve until 2007 – has offered to step down.

Vaca Díez and Cossío have both avoided taking a position. Their reluctance has been interpreted by analysts as a desire to step into the position left vacant by Mesa.

After two weeks of pressure from roadblocks around the country, which have led to shortages of fuel and foodstuffs and cuts in water and power services in La Paz, Mesa appeared on TV Monday night to announce that he was stepping down.

In his address, he put an emphasis on the respect for human life demonstrated by his government through the restraint exercised by the police in their crackdowns on the demonstrators.

No one has been killed, and only around 20 demonstrators have been arrested, by contrast to the 67 lives lost when the army and police were called out by Sánchez de Lozada to quell the protests in October 2003.

The current unrest broke out after Congress passed a law that would have raised the taxes and royalties paid by the foreign oil companies operating in Bolivia – which include Brazil’s Petrobras, Spain’s Repsol and British Petroleum – but not as much as MAS and indigenous and labour groups were demanding.

Mesa had already offered his resignation on Mar. 6, but it was turned down by Congress.

The president clarified in his speech Monday that "I am here and I will be here" until the legislature accepts his resignation.

The protests that forced Sánchez de Lozada to resign were triggered by a plan to export natural gas to Mexico and the United States through a port in Chile, towards which Bolivia has a long-standing antagonism.

Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, has the second-largest reserves of natural gas in South America, after those of Venezuela.

The October 2003 demonstrations by indigenous and labour groups in La Paz and the neighbouring shantytown suburb of El Alto were successful in blocking the plan to export the natural gas.

Last week, in an attempt to ease the tension, Mesa issued a decree setting an Oct. 16 date for a referendum on regional autonomy, as demanded by business and large landholders in the eastern department (province) of Santa Cruz.

The eastern region, where the country’s natural gas is concentrated, wants greater control over the profits from those resources.

Elections for delegates of a constituent assembly, as demanded by indigenous organisations, labour unions and other civil society groups in western Bolivia, were also scheduled by Mesa for Oct. 16.

These organisations want the constitution to be modified to give greater participation in decision-making to the poor, indigenous majority.

But opposition parties said they would reject the decree, on the argument that only Congress has the authority to call a referendum or a constituent assembly.

Mesa and the protesters had hoped the legislature would agree to hold a referendum and convene a constituent assembly for the sake of national unity.

But the lawmakers were divided, above and beyond party affiliation, under pressure from their regions, and Congress failed to reach an agreement on two different occasions.

The labour and campesino (peasant) movements have refused to halt the protests, in response to the Catholic Church’s call for an end to the demonstrations.

The executive secretary of the Central Obrera Boliviana labour confederation, Jaime Solares, ruled out the possibility of engaging in talks with the Church after a meeting of labour leaders decided to continue the marches and traffic blockades.

The roads into La Paz and highways around the country are still blocked by the campesino demonstrators, while civil society groups in El Alto are considering the Church’s appeal.