[News] Bolivia - New Constitution Passed, Celebrations Hit the Streets

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Bolivia Looking Forward: New Constitution Passed, Celebrations Hit the Streets

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20375

January 27, 2009 By Ben Dangl

After Bolivia's new constitution was passed in a 
national referendum on Sunday, thousands gathered 
in La Paz to celebrate. Standing on the balcony 
of the presidential palace, President Evo Morales 
addressed a raucous crowd: "Here begins a new 
Bolivia. Here we begin to reach true equality."

Polls conducted by Televisión Boliviana announced 
that the document passed with 61.97% support from 
some 3.8 million voters. According the poll, 
36.52% of voters voted against the constitution, 
and 1.51% cast blank and null votes. The 
departments where the constitution passed 
included La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, 
Tarija, and Pando. It was rejected in Santa Cruz, Beni, and Chuquisaca.

The constitution, which was written in a 
constituent assembly that first convened in 
August of 2006, grants unprecedented rights to 
Bolivia's indigenous majority, establishes 
broader access to basic services, education and 
healthcare and expands the role of the state in 
the management of natural resources and the economy.

When the news spread throughout La Paz that the 
constitution had been passed in the referendum, 
fireworks, cheers and horns sounded off 
sporadically. By 8:30, thousands had already 
gathered in the Plaza Murillo. The crowd cheered 
"Evo! Evo! Evo!" until Morales, Vice President 
Alvaro Garcia Linera and other leading figures in 
the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) government, 
crowded out onto the balcony of the presidential palace.

"I would like to take this opportunity to 
recognize all of the brothers and sisters of 
Bolivia, all of the compañeros and compañeras, 
all of the citizens that through their vote, 
through their democratic participation, decide to 
refound Bolivia," Morales said. "From 2005 to 
2009 we have gone from triumph to triumph, while 
the neoliberals, the traitors have been 
constantly broken down thanks to the consciousness of the Bolivian people."

He shook his fist in the air, the applause died 
down. "And I want you to know something, the 
colonial state ends here. Internal colonialism 
and external colonialism ends here. Sisters and 
brothers, neoliberalism ends here too."

At various points in the speech Morales, and 
others on the balcony, held up copies of the new 
constitution. Morales continued, "And now, thanks 
to the consciousness of the Bolivian people, the 
natural resources are recuperated for life, and 
no government, no new president can...give our 
natural resources away to transnational companies."

A Weakened Right

Though news reports and analysts have suggested 
that the passage of the new constitution will 
exacerbate divisions in the country, some of the 
political tension may be directed into the 
electoral realm as general elections are now 
scheduled to take place in December of this year. 
In addition, the constitution's passage is 
another sign of the weakness of the Bolivian 
right, and their lack of a clear political agenda 
and mandate to confront the MAS's popularity. The 
recent passage of the constitution is likely to 
divide and further debilitate the right.

Even Manfred Reyes Villa, an opponent of Morales 
and ex-governor of Cochabamba, told Joshua 
Partlow of the 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=admin/registration/register&destination=login&nextstep=gather&application=reg30-world&applicationURL=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/25/AR2009012500625.html>Washington 
Post that, "Today, there is not a serious 
opposition in the country." When the right-wing 
led 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1478/1/>violence 
in the department of Pando in September of 2008 
left some 20 people dead and many others wounded, 
the right lost much of its legitimacy and 
support. "With Pando, the regional opposition 
just collapsed," George Gray Molina, an ex-United 
Nations official in Bolivia, and a current 
research fellow at Oxford University, told 
Partlow. "I think they lost authority and 
legitimacy even among their own grass roots."

Celebrations

Fireworks shot off at the end of Morales' speech 
in the Plaza Murillo, sending pigeons flying 
scared. Live folk music played on stage as the 
crowd danced and the TV crews packed up and left. 
The wind blew around giant balloon figures of 
hands the color of the Bolivian flag holding the new constitution.

As the night wore on, more people began dancing 
to the bands in the street than to those on the 
stage. At midnight, when the police asked the 
thousands gathered to leave the plaza, the crowd 
took off marching down the street, taking the 
fiesta to central La Paz, cheering nearly every 
Latin American revolutionary cheer, pounding 
drums and sharing beer. After marching down a 
number of blocks on the empty streets, the crowd 
hunkered down for a street party at the base of a 
statue of the Latin American liberator, Simón 
Bolívar. The celebration, which included 
Bolivians, Argentines, Brazilians, French, 
British, North Americans and more, went on into 
the early hours of the morning.

Oscar Rocababo, a Bolivian sociologist working on 
his Master's degree in La Paz, was elated about 
the victory in the referendum. "The passage of 
this constitution is like the cherry on top of 
the ice cream, the culmination of many years of struggle."


Benjamin Dangl is currently based in Bolivia, and 
is the author of 
<http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/priceoffireakpress>The 
Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements 
in Bolivia (AK Press). He is the editor of 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/home/>TowardFreedom.com, 
a progressive perspective on world events, and 
<http://upsidedownworld.org/>UpsideDownWorld.org, 
a website on activism and politics in Latin 
America. Email Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com




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