As Bolivians Vote on New Constitution, Opposition Finds Itself Divided

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Jan. 24 -- Just six months ago, the enemies of President Evo Morales seemed brash with their power.

In the arc of lowland eastern regions known as the "half moon," which tend to be richer and whiter than those in the western mountains, leaders openly expressed their disdain for Morales. They considered Bolivia's first indigenous head of state an authoritarian socialist and acolyte of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

In protests and strikes, they mocked the former coca grower as nothing but a narco-president. They held their own referendums and declared themselves autonomous. Some called for a military coup.

Among their ultimate aims was to stop Morales from passing a new national constitution that would enhance the power of the state over the economy, enshrine new rights for indigenous groups and perhaps give him several more years as president. The opposition vowed to stop it.

But as Bolivians go to the polls Sunday to vote on that constitution, Morales opponents are divided and seemingly demoralized, with many acknowledging they have little hope of voting it down. In a country where a majority of people are of indigenous descent and poor, the opposition does not, at the moment, have a national figure or a message to challenge the appeal and charisma of Morales.

"Today, there is not a serious opposition in the country," said Manfred Reyes Villa, the former governor of Cochabamba and a Morales opponent, who was ousted during a nationwide recall referendum in August.

Those free-market advocates who disagreed with Morales's policies -- demanding more regional revenue from oil and gas companies, state payments to poor children and the elderly -- coalesced not in a political party but around regional governors and civic committee leaders in the eastern states. They had momentum in May and June when Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija passed autonomy referendums.

But their movement stumbled in August, during a national referendum on whether to recall Morales halfway through his first term. Morales won by a landslide, capturing 67 percent of the vote, exceeding the 53 percent he achieved during his election in December 2005.

The victory not only energized his push for a new constitution, it also inflamed the situation in opposition territory. Anti-government mobs ransacked and burned government offices. The trouble peaked on Sept. 11, when a group of Morales supporters came under attack on a dirt road in the Amazonian region of Pando. About 20 people were killed, though the numbers are in dispute, and a subsequent report from the Union of South American Nations called it a "massacre." Civil war seemed a possibility.

"They were much more aggressive. They didn't have a response to the recall referendum," Antonio Peredo, a senator from Morales's Movement Toward Socialism party, said of the opposition. "The only response that they found was the violence, in hope that the government would respond with violence, and then they could publicize the image of an authoritarian dictatorship capable of massacres."

Morales imprisoned the governor of Pando, Leopoldo Fernández, and accused him of orchestrating the killings. The killings and the arrest, according to analysts and politicians, undercut the opposition's momentum.

"With Pando, the regional opposition just collapsed," said George Gray Molina, a research fellow at Oxford University and former United Nations official in Bolivia. "I think they lost authority and legitimacy even among their own grass roots."