On July 2, Bolivia held historic elections for representatives to a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution, fulfilling what has long been a key demand of Bolivia's indigenous poor and social movements. President Evo Morales and his party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), secured over 60% of the seats. The majority of these came from the more organised and combative indigenous west, but for the first time MAS also captured first place in the more elite Santa Cruz east.
Concurrent with the elections was a referendum on autonomy, which had been pushed by the oligarchy and large landowners organised through the civic committees of the east, particularly in Santa Cruz. Although the "no" vote was around 55% nationally, "yes" to autonomy won in four of the nine departments, showing the continued class, ethnic and regional divisions in Bolivia.
Below, Green Left Weekly publishes an abridged interview carried out only days after the election by Pablo Stefanoni with Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera — former guerrilla fighter, more recently mathematician, and perhaps Bolivia's best-known political commentator before he agreed to become Morales's running mate in the last elections.
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What is your balance sheet of the July 2 elections?
I have a very optimistic reading. We took a risk in taking our first five months of government to a plebiscite ... and the results are more than flattering. There are not exact figures, but is it clear that we have surpassed the 53.7% from December 18 [the presidential elections] and we have gained a simple majority in the Constituent Assembly [over 60%].
We have been told that we did not reach the two-thirds [necessary to approve the new constitution], but the law was deliberately set out so that it was impossible for anybody to obtain the two-thirds. Besides that we have managed to expand our presence in Santa Cruz and Tarija, and in the department of Pando [in the Bolivian Amazonic region] we were only two or three points from first place. There is an impressive presence of MAS across Bolivia and it is the first time that the left has won in Santa Cruz.
And the referendum on autonomy?
Clearly, there is a strong spirit of regional autonomy that we as the government need to recognise, as one of the social fractures that needs to be healed in the Constituent Assembly. We need to take up this message that asks for greater political-administrative decentralisation. The people have issued a double message: they want autonomy, but conducted by the bloc of change and not by the conservative groups.
Is it on the ruling party's agenda to introduce into the new constitution the possibility of a second term for presidents?
As party and government no, but there are social movements that have been pushing this and we will see how it proceeds in the Constituent Assembly.
How possible is it to change the state and not be changed by it?
The state as a social relation is more flexible and easier to change than the state as an institution, as something inherited that continues reproducing mechanisms of marginalisation. Therein lies the great tension in this process of occupation of the state by the social movements. How to transform this rigid institutionalism, in favour of social movements and of civil society? That is the challenge of the Constituent Assembly.
When one speaks of a government of the social movements, the image that comes to mind is that of an asambleista [assembly] government, but that does not occur in Bolivia, where decisions are concentrated with President Evo Morales.
Of course, it seems contradictory. We are speaking about a government of the social movements, because the programs raised and constructed by those organisations over these last six years, and also in previous anti-colonial and anti-neoliberal struggles, are today being brought together collectively in the reforms that are being carried out.
Secondly, the organisational structure of MAS is a coalition of social movements that define the general politics of this government. And thirdly, the big decisions that are made — nationalisation of the hydrocarbons, the Constituent Assembly and agrarian revolution — have been the result of a process of deliberation and consultation with the social movements. There are no permanent assemblies, but rather a combination of asambleista and the concentration of decision making. Another level of the presence of social movements is the recruitment of personnel for the state, which passes obligatorily through the filter of the movements.
Nevertheless, the social movements are not present in a homogeneous way across the nation.
Where the social movements are weaker — for example, in the east — the state is present in the form of a cushion against the blackmail and intimidation of the monopoly private businesses that limit the moblisation of the popular collective; that is to say, the state creates the conditions for the exercising of rights and the potential of mobilisation.
The Constituent Assembly moved beyond the idea of a constituent power of the people (in a version similar to that promoted by Italian philosopher Antonio Negri) to one of constitutionalising or enshrining decisions that have been made by decree (more similar to the position of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez). Is there a change of thinking behind the Constituent Assembly?
When we were not in power, we saw it as a scenario for the construction of a counter power against a state shielded from social demands. But when the popular movement was able to break that shield, it got in through the gaps, knocked down the walls and occupied state power, and a great number of the demands were carried out by the new government. That is why it seems that the Constituent Assembly does not have the same drive as in the year before. Some say "why do we need a constituent assembly if we are already in government?"
However, it continues to be a central project. The assembly [which will commence meeting in Sucre on August 6] will be a grand integration and bringing together of society in a moment of victory when, in the past, the moments of unification have come off the back of defeats, such as the Pacific war, the Chaco war, etc. If we achieve a grand national armistice, the Constituent Assembly would have achieved its mission. But the convention will also establish a new balance of forces and meanwhile, will constitutionalise the principal measures taken by the government.
Evo Morales has proposed a grand alliance of classes between peasants, indigenous people, workers, the middle classes, patriotic business-owners and nationalist soldiers, against imperialism. You say "industrialisation or death" and that the export of primary materials is the basis of colonialism. Are we seeing a return to that old nationalism now with an indigenous face?
Every revolution implies certain types of alliances. You can only be successful in the class war if you manage to isolate, demoralise and weaken the adversary and join together with potential allies — that is the idea of a hegemony. I don't believe that the alliance of classes is the inheritance of the old nationalism. The question is who builds that hegemony, and today in Bolivia there is a reinvigoration of the homeland, the state, of sovereignty, but the leaders are no longer the middle classes trained up out of the national revolution of 1952, but a conglomerate of social movements with an indigenous base.
This is what gives us a new type of indigenous nationalism; I like more multi-national indigenous patriotism, which thinks of the nation from the starting point of a diversity of nations that live together within its borders. This idea of the homeland has two dimensions: the strengthening of the state and the strengthening of the social movements, with an indigenous neo-patriotism.
And the correlating economy policy is the Andean capitalism you proposed or the old national capitalism?
The correlating economic policy behind all this is the progressive dismantling of the colonial economic dependence that condemned us to being a primary material exporting country. That is why the nationalisation of the hydrocarbons is tied together with its industrialisation. Bolivia will continue being a capitalist country, but with a greater bargaining power against the modes of capitalism worldwide. Internally, we are trying to promote communitarian structures; that is why we talk about Andean-Amazonian capitalism. Capitalism predominates, but other modes of production than ones that transfer profits, wealth and technical resources are recognised and reinforced.
The agrarian revolution now in motion is very clear: the land is distributed in a collective manner. The same thing occurs with the distribution of tractors to municipalities for free use by the producers in the community, or the legislation over water that favours its local community appropriation ahead of forms of private concession. There is a type of communitarian economic policy that is going to be developed, parallel to the state economy and a negotiated relationship with local and foreign investment.
From Green Left Weekly, July 26, 2006.
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