A few weeks ago, a pro-government majority (the opposition was absent) of the Constituent Assembly (CA) approved a new draft constitution (after a last-minute change of venue). It was barely debated, and voted upon in only a few hours. This followed weeks of unrest, including four deaths in Sucre. Not surprisingly, the opposition recoiled. In response, several lowland departments announced their own “autonomy statutes” & prepared to take them to department-wide referendums.
Over the holidays, the MAS government & opposition prefects began moving towards negotiations. The hope was to somehow reconcile the two positions, peacefully. So far, it seems to work. But the result has shown why it was a poor idea to rush the new CA draft (unless that was some clever negotiation tactic, which is not what the CA was meant to be used for).
So, although the CA was (under dubious legal circumstances) “approved” in plenary (w/ virtually no debate), it will be revisited. One of the requests of the opposition was that the government review the CA draft (which eventually made its way to the public) & reconcile numerous discrepancies & contradictions w/in the text itself. The government has agreed. (A small government team was already openly “revising” the text even after it was approved, which is again of dubious legality.) Additionally, Evo seems willing to incorporate department autonomy into the CA. Most of the negotiations are taking place between MAS & opposition representatives—only some of that will be conducted by the CA itself (unclear how much).
In the end, Bolivia might emerge w/ a comprise constitution. But it will be a “pacted” agreement (like the ones from 1980s through 1990s), rather than a “deliberated” one (since the CA failed abysmally at that level).
