BOLIVIA: New President Walks Tightrope Between Conflicting Demands

By Franz Chávez Reprint | | Print |

Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Jun 17 2005 (IPS) - The refusal by Bolivia’s lawmakers to step down to make early general elections possible and the threat of an imminent resumption of protest demonstrations are the main obstacles faced by the country’s new caretaker president, Eduardo Rodríguez, in his first week in office.

On one hand, Rodríguez is running up against the insistence of indigenous and labour groups around La Paz in western Bolivia, who want the country’s abundant natural gas reserves – the second-largest in South America, after Venezuela’s – to be nationalised.

On the other, he is facing the demands of the business community and landowners in the wealthy eastern provinces, where the natural gas as well as the country’s agricultural wealth is concentrated, who are demanding regional autonomy that would grant them greater local control over revenues from the natural resources.

These same conflicting demands led to the Jun. 7 resignation of Rodríguez’s predecessor, Carlos Mesa, after three weeks of protests and social unrest brought this Andean nation of 9.2 million to a virtual standstill.

The new president has made no promises, other than agreeing to the terms set by the legislature when it appointed him president on Jun. 10: that early elections would be held before the end of 2005, and that he would hand over the reins to his elected successor.

Before he submitted his resignation, Mesa was serving out the term of his predecessor, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who was also forced to step down by nearly a month of protests over the natural gas conflict.

The conservative Sánchez de Lozada fled the country in October 2003 after some 70 demonstrators were killed when he called the army and police out to crack down on the protests in El Alto, a sprawling working-class suburb of La Paz.

Sánchez de Lozada was then replaced by his vice-president, Mesa, whose term was to end in August 2007.

After Mesa quit, the indigenous, campesino and labour groups forced the two politicians who were next in line to succeed him – the presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies – to step aside, leaving Rodríguez, the Supreme Court chief justice, next in line for the presidency.

But Rodríguez, who was seen as capable of maintaining “unity” and restoring peace and order, at least in the short-term, is facing enormous challenges.

Opinion polls show that Bolivians not only want to elect a new president and vice-president in the early elections, but are also determined to hold elections for the badly discredited legislature.

However, the 157 members of Congress would first have to resign – unless a constitutional reform were adopted. But if that were to happen, it could only go into effect for the next legislature, as of August 2007, lawyer Benjamín Miguel Harb told IPS.

The badly dented popularity of the country’s lawmakers – 27 senators and 130 deputies – further plunged when several insisted that in order to resign they would need to draw severance pay that could amount to as much as five times their monthly salary, if Bolivia’s labour legislation is applied.

The legislators earn just over 2,700 dollars a month, while the national minimum monthly wage is a mere 50 dollars, and 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

But Harb said the members of Congress cannot legally demand indemnification for early retirement, under Bolivian law.

The public’s rejection of the country’s lawmakers and political parties was expressed loudly Thursday when the leaders of the two houses of Congress attempted to accompany President Rodríguez in a ceremony in which the armed forces recognised him as their new supreme commander-in-chief.

The two congressional leaders were actually booed off of one of the balconies by the crowd outside the government palace before the ceremony was over.

Earlier, Senate president Hormando Vaca Díez had given a speech explaining why the lack of consensus made it impossible to call early legislative elections, alongside the vote for president and vice-president.

But Rodríguez responded in a firm voice that “Congress must address the demands for general elections, in order to strengthen the democratic system.”

The social discontent could lead to a new wave of protests that would be capable of actually shutting down Congress, sociology Professor Joaquín Saravia told IPS.

In the meantime, the leading potential presidential hopefuls are cement industry tycoon Samuel Doria Medina; indigenous lawmaker Evo Morales, the head of the leftist Movement to Socialism (MAS) party and leader of the country’s coca farmers; and ex-president Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002).

Doria Medina, the front-runner in the polls, founded the National Unity (UN) party after leaving the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), which governed from 1989 to 1993 through its leader, former president Jaime Paz Zamora, and after that formed a coalition that supported the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement’s (MNR) Sánchez de Lozada.

Meanwhile, Morales, who came in a close second to Sánchez de Lozada in the 2002 presidential elections, has seen his popularity wane slightly as he headed up street demonstrations and roadblocks in the country’s latest political crises.

Nevertheless, analysts underline that the campaign has not yet begun.

President Rodríguez is facing threats from the combative trade unions and residents of El Alto, who say they will call off their truce and resume their marches and traffic blockades until the oil and gas fields, currently worked by around 12 foreign oil companies, are nationalised.

Rodríguez had asked the El Alto organisations for a respite, in order to allow the next elected government to deal with their demands.

For three weeks, the strikes and demonstrations in El Alto basically paralysed the impoverished suburb, causing losses estimated at 100 million dollars – one-quarter of Bolivia’s fiscal deficit – and forcing 80 small factories to shut down, according to the Federation of Private Businesses in La Paz.