Bolivia's Political Fissures Force Morales to Shift Course

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Jan. 21 -- The elected assembly charged with redrawing Bolivia's political blueprint has not debated a single proposal after six months of sessions. When the 255 members meet, they fight over how many votes it will take to pass constitutional changes, if the changes are ever proposed.

But the people of this politically divided country are growing increasingly impatient, and they have started to do what the assembly has not. They are once again debating Bolivia's future, in an even more volatile setting than the contentious assembly hall: the streets.

As President Evo Morales celebrates his first year in office Monday, he remains determined to launch what he calls a "democratic revolution," built on the traditions of the country's indigenous population. But the rising public unrest -- by his opponents and supporters -- has forced the government to come up with new ways to try to get there.

Morales, and the slight majority of assembly members aligned with him, initially had hoped that the assembly, created last year, would enable them to grant indigenous communities more institutional power and a bigger share of government revenue.

But long-simmering regional conflicts have interfered, with opposition assembly members insisting on more autonomy for local governments in regions that produce the bulk of the country's export income. The deadlock over voting procedures is merely a reflection of the much deeper fault lines running through Bolivia.

"Our meetings always end in insults," said Oscar Urquízu Córdova, an assembly member for the Podemos party, which opposes Morales, the former leader of a coca growers union. "Their side accuses us of 500 years of oppression against the indigenous class, and they say we represent a repressive oligarchy. Then we say things back to them, like calling them 'narco-traffickers.' "

Meanwhile, the rifts left unaddressed by the assembly have worsened.

Last month, about a million people filled the streets of Santa Cruz to demand greater autonomy from the central government, which the protesters accuse of taking their region's wealth and unfairly distributing it elsewhere. Recently, when the regional governor of the central district of Cochabamba said he would seek greater regional autonomy, Morales's allies took to the streets to demand his resignation. Two people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the resulting clashes.

And protesters in La Paz plan demonstrations Monday demanding the resignation of that district's governor, who also supports greater regional autonomy.

"All of these issues -- the problems with the assembly and the protests around the autonomy issue -- are closely related," said Gonzalo Chávez, a political analyst at the Catholic University in La Paz. "The assembly was supposed to be addressing these things, but now the country lacks the institutional mechanisms to deal with them. And it has to look elsewhere."

Morales and Vice President Álvaro García Linera recently have appeared to downgrade their expectations for the assembly, which was supposed to have written a new constitution within a year.

In an interview last week, García Linera said that the deadline was unrealistic and that the process would take at least two years.