There’s an interesting conflict brewing w/in Bolivia’s National Electoral Court (CNE). The newly appointed CNE president (José Luis Exeni) is asking the Santa Cruz regional electoral court to stop verifying the signatures for a referendum initiative. The initiative would establish a department-wide referendum on the “autonomic” statute (read text of the Santa Cruz autonomic statute).
The MAS government has consistently argued that both the autonomic statute & a potential referendum on it are illegal. The key argument lies in its incompatibility w/ the recent constitution draft approved (under controversial circumstances) by the Constituent Assembly (read text of the constitution draft). A quick search of the text finds “referéndum” absent from the constitution text itself (though it appears eight times in the document’s preface). The constitution is legally not a binding document until it is approved by a nation-wide referendum.
However, the recent Referendum Law (Ley °2769) allows popular referendum initiatives (not just those called by the government). In Article 6, the law explicitly allows for departmental referendums, w/ a threshold of 8% of the department’s registered voters. The law was approved during the Mesa presidency as a way to allow the 2004 gas referendum to go forward (previously, the Bolivian constitution didn’t recognize any referendums of any kind). To qualify under the law, the Santa Cruz autonomic referendum requires only 55,707 valid signatures.
Moving forward w/ an autonomy referendum (something other departments are also looking to do) certainly puts a squeeze on the government, which is negotiating w/ the country’s nine prefects. The goal (of the negotiations) is to accommodate department autonomies into the draft constitution. If voters approve regional autonomy, on their own terms, the government loses significant leverage. And so long as the process is conducted w/in legal institutions (such as the Referendum Law), the MAS government is further squeezed.
Meanwhile, the Bolivian supreme court recently reviewed the draft constitution itself, following a number of complaints (“observances”) by various political & institutional actors. The court ruled that there were numerous “illegalities” in the document, a charge rejected by Evo (under the argument that the new constitution can’t be subordinated to the previous one).
The standoff between the electoral courts—the Santa Cruz regional court has refused to comply w/ Exeni’s directive—is just the latest wrinkle in the conflict between the central government & regional autonomy movements.
