Miguel,

When I heard the president say those things yesterday I thought the same things you did: "He, on purpose, made people fight over a document he wasn't even planning on passing unmodified?

Hey, may I translate this post and repost it in Heterodoxia?

Thanx.

@Pablo: Si, puedes traducirlo y postearlo tranquilamente. Ademas, creo que yo escribire algo mas largo para Tiempo Político.

Gracias. Lo programo para las 20:00 HOB.

Un abrazo.

I dunno Miguel. Seems like staking out an extreme position is generally what one does to start a negotiation. Bolivia's tragedy is that it lacked the institutional mechanisms to proceed to the next step: compromise (without bloodshed, that is). I mean, did the other side really consider capitalidad a crucial issue (the sucrenses did, but not the rest)? If the oppos woulda got what they wanted Tuto could have easily said "Guess what - we don't really care where the capital is. We were just saying that!" To me Evo's position seemed to be stating the obvious. Both sides staked out unacceptable negotiating positions, played their hands poorly, and led the country down a tragic path. In the end, Evo had a stronger hand in a de-institutionalized setting and got most of what he wanted. I don't think the statement adds or subtracts anything from the sad elements of the last year.

Firstly, the violence was stoked by the opposition elite which means that Evo is NOT responsible for the violence.

Second, Bolivia has been in sociopolitical turmoil forever. Evo's presidency is the most stable the country has been in ages. Dont you remember the water wars?

Third, Evo obviously would have gone for the 'extreme' draft of the new constitution if he could have but we was realistic enough to know that he would probably have to reach some compromise. There is nothing reckless about that. What is reckless is to divide people based on stupid non-issues such as where the capital is.

@jd: Well, the purpose of the constituent assembly was to develop a new constitution, in an open forum, where issues were presented & discussed. The kind of brinksmanship that Evo is suggesting is not how one should write constitutions. Are you suggesting that Bush's Patriot Act should be treated merely as a bargaining position?

@Jared: While Bolivia has been in turmoil for a while, I would hardly call Evo's presidency stable. The death toll alone should say something. And I do think that that BOTH government AND opposition share some blame for the violence in the past several months. How much blame should go to each side can be debated, of course. But both sides have a share in the responsibility. I mean, Quintana (a cabinet minister) himself recently apologized for having used language that helped encourage the violence in Pando. But I agree that "non-issues" are stupidly used to drive people's passions. I think the issue of where the capital is should be resolved in some other way. I also think there is no place for the issue of Bolivia's claim to sovereign access to the sea to be in the constitution (it is in the new revised draft).

Miguel-

I don't disagree with you with that in a tranquil alternate Bolivian reality the constituent assembly would have been the proper forum for rational debate and agreement on the constitution. But the problem with the CA was precisely that both sides used extreme starting points and brinksmanship to push their positions. That's why I said that "Evo had a stronger hand in a de-institutionalized setting and got most of what he wanted." I agree that the seeming braggadocio is a bit unseemly, but seriously, how does it make any difference in reality if he'd said "well we really believed in all those things but sometimes you just have to compromise?" Seems to me, not at all.

Evo and the MAS obviously knew that the way the CPE was approved would lead to confrontation, so what would have been the point of drafting a magnanimous version of the document? The key problem was the way the dynamics of the MAS-opposition conflict led to perversions of the CA process (cheating by the MAS, obstructionism by the opposition). It seems to me that such a context - where you know that more confrontation and negotiation is on the horizon - rationally invites the staking of a fairly extremist position. And again, it goes both ways: is capitalidad any less of a red herring than a majority vote for constitutional amendments? The point is not that one side is worse than the other; it's just that an impolitik comment is essentially irrelevant to the dynamics at play.

I'm not really sure where the Patriot Act analogy fits in, given differences in institutional functioning in the two countries.

@jd: You're right, my analogy may not be 100% appropriate for a number of reasons. But I was looking for a quick way to point out that if laws are merely starting points for future discussions (particularly violent ones!), then what's the point of deliberative bodies?

I also think it WOULD make a difference if Evo had said he had compromised. It would be a great teaching moment for his movement: We have to be willing to compromise. It would also be a great show of statesmanship. It also says something about his inner motivations. Particularly since it seems he compromised on policy in order to retain the right to be reelected.

The ball is now in the opposition's court, of course. They claimed to have fought for the "2/3 principle," a recognition of Sucre as the capital, and departmental autonomies. They've got most of that (and more!). If they're not satisfied, then maybe those were just red herrings.

I tend to hold Evo to a higher standard (as others have pointed out). But that's because Evo is a head of state. I believe those in power have a greater responsibility to avoid violence, repression, and illiberal activities. As a Liberal, I prefer civil society to have more freedom to speak & act than states.

Yes, Miguel politics is ugly. It seems you set saintly standards for Evo and MAS, yet you rarely criticize the opposition unless it is in a watered down blame-goes-all-around fashion. Arre they not responsible for their disruptive racist behavior. I do not buy your head of state explanations. The opposition leadership controls a powerful social movemement in the country's most economically prosperous region. You are saying that they do not have adher to high standards? Yes there was too much meddling in the supposedly non-partisan constitutional assembly. But that cuts both ways from La Paz to Santa Cruz. Bargaining hard and setting you sights high is normal in all negotiations from Paulson's behavior with the bail out to every day contract negotiations between unions and employers. That does not necessarily support the inference of bad faith. What about the opposition's promulgation of the issue of the capitalia just to disrupt the process. Was that good faith? What about when PODEMOS completely walked away from the process in August 2007? Was that good faith? What about PODEMOS inisistence that every action of the assembly be approved by 2/3, even simple actions like sending a thank you letter to the mayor of Sucre for hosting the event. Was that good faith? It is getting to the point where I can no longer take seriously anything you write here, because your bias is so extreme.

I think I've been plenty critical of the opposition on many occasions, including this post. But. Yes. I do hold sitting governments to a higher standard. If the opposition wants to play the brinksmanship game, that's their business. But I expect more maturity than that from heads of states & their administration.

I assume, Shanqueros, that you'll condemn Evo, Quispe, and Solares for their role in instigating violence in October 2003? After all, a sitting head of state, Goni has born most of the blame for the tragic events of those several weeks.

I also think that something like a boycott of a proceeding is on a different order of magnitude from deliberately passing a new constitution as a "bargaining" tool. I mean, I'm sorry. But perhaps I put too much weight on what a CONSTITUTION is supposed to mean.

I've no problem w/ MAS asking for 100% and then giving in to accept something less DURING THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY PROCESS. I have a problem w/ Evo essentially saying that he passed a sham constitution, making a mockery of the very institutional system he demanded for nearly a decade, simply as a way to make a point. Or are you willing to now accept the autonomy referendums as merely the opposition's way to play hardball?

In the end, such tactics strip away what I want to see: THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS.

Only a couple months ago the eastern prefectures were confident that they were going to establish private independent fiefdoms. Those days are gone.
UNASUR conference in Santiago was united in backing the territorial integrity of Bolivia. The Catholic Church chose to play a constructive role in preventing violent divisions
USA could only bellow from the sidelines bogged down in military messes in Iraq and Afghanistan and the mega mercantile meltdown.
Bolivia's army chose not to support the civic coup Paraguay voted for Lugo.
Indigenous and other people in eastern Bolivia stood up to the fascist civic councils
50000 marched to the House of Deputies ensuring that they will not prevent the proposed referendum

Surprise Surprise the compromise deals most thought impossible only months earlier, are almost all in place.

Luke Weyland -

Can you give the names of any of the people who actually called for "independence"?

Also, do you think that these compromises would have actually happened had the Media Luna not pressed its case on autonomy?

Oh, I just saw that he claimed, on another blog, that "over 100 people" were killed in Pando. And that the US has invaded "Surinam...Uraguay [sic]...Puerto Rica [sic]". I guess I made a mistake in assuming that he actually had some idea of what he was talking about. My bad...

@Frank: I agree that the opposition probably helped push the draft constitution (CPE) to have autonomy. But I don't see why that couldn't have been settled in the constituent assembly (CA) to begin w/. MAS took a hard line, then prevented opposition delegates from voting on the more "radical" proposal. For what? To then go back to the same kind of alternate proposal that was raised as one of the potential compromises early in the CA deliberations?

If you look back to the record of their discussions, many of the "changes" made in the last few weeks reflect the language of some of the earliest "compromises" made in the first months of the CA. If MAS was going to just go back to previously agreed upon language later, why risk civil war, social disintegration, and an international regional crisis?

More & more, it's looking like the compromise was a means to get the opposition to accept one thing: presidential reelection.

Miguel -

I agree, if the CA had included the autonomy provision in the beginning, much of what has happened in the past year could have been avoided. Completely unnecessary, as you point out.

I think Evo's 2/3 victory in August did more to promote THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS more so than anything the divisive politics of media luna has done.

What about the victory of opposition prefects by similar margins in places like Santa Cruz? Did that also help promote institutionalization?

I tend to agree w/ critics of presidentialism (like Linz, O'Donnell, Valenzuela, etc) who suggest that LEGISLATURES tend to support representative democracy more so than elections for executives (and I'll include both presidents & "governors" or prefects).

So far PODEMOS has done nothing that I am aware of to comply with the more populist aspects of the autonomy statute, i.e. increasing the minimum wage. So, my answer would have to be no.