Throwing down the gauntlet

Turmoil in Bolivia

Mar 10th 2005 LA PAZ
From The Economist print edition

The president, Carlos Mesa (pictured above), has challenged his radical opponents to let him govern. Some of them are not listening

AFTER 17 months as Bolivia's president, Carlos Mesa was at the end of his tether. Roadblocks thrown up in protest against multinationals, higher fuel prices and much else were making life a misery and, said the government, costing South America's poorest country $3.8m a day in lost business. Congress had blockaded the president's legislative programme with equal efficiency. So on March 6th Mr Mesa went on television to denounce his enemies and to demand that Congress and Bolivians let him govern, or he would quit.

The theatrics appeared to work. Two days later Congress rejected his resignation and agreed to a four-point pact intended to make Bolivia governable and to allow Mr Mesa to serve out his term, which ends in 2007. But the most radical troublemakers quickly rejected the deal. Nor is it clear how faithfully Congress will honour it. Bolivia has been on edge since October 2003, when 59 demonstrators were killed during similar protests. These succeeded in their aim of forcing the resignation of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the elected president. Mr Mesa, his vice-president, took over. Despite his gambit this week, more chaos may lie ahead.

The pact between president and Congress attempts to deal with the three issues that are tearing Bolivia apart. It calls for a new energy law, which will try to reconcile the popular demand that Bolivia reap all the benefit from its natural resources with the need to attract foreign investment. It proposes a referendum on autonomy for the nine provinces, and popular election of their governors, who are now appointed by the president. That attends to entrepreneurial eastern provinces like Santa Cruz, which want to curb the influence of the poorer, anti-capitalist west. And, for the country's poor indigenous majority, whose members feel like second-class Bolivians, it mandates a constituent assembly, ostensibly to write a more “inclusive” constitution.

This balm has not appeased the opposition. Evo Morales, who leads a coca-growers' union and the left-wing Movement to Socialism, called the pact “anti-patriotic” and said blockades would continue until his main demand is met: royalties of 50% on all natural gas pumped in Bolivia. He promptly struck a “revolutionary pact” with forces more radical than he is, including the Bolivian Workers Central.

Bolivia's future now depends on whether Mr Morales and his allies puff up or deflate. On resources, most Bolivians share Mr Morales's rage. They see natural gas as a winning lottery ticket that foreign interests are trying to steal. The citizens of El Alto, a poor, sprawling city perched above La Paz, the capital, are engaged in a like-minded campaign to throw out a French water company, which they blame for high prices and for failing to supply water to hundreds of thousands of people. The government has said the company will go, but not fast enough for the agitators' liking.

Mr Mesa, who has hitherto sworn not to use force against the blockaders, is hoping that Bolivians will reject their tactics. There are some encouraging signs. When he threatened to resign, hundreds, maybe thousands of supporters went to La Paz's main square to beg him to stay (and to jeer Mr Morales). Some observers detect in this the stirring of Bolivia's “silent majority”, which Mr Mesa is now trying rouse further by calling for mass demonstrations against violence on March 10th. Street power used to work only against Mr Mesa. Now, says Carlos Toranzo, a political scientist in La Paz, the Bolivian street is splitting.

Abel Mamani, El Alto's most prominent leader, admits that the blockades have temporarily weakened. That is because the president has “confused people”; the protests will soon regain full strength, he says. But it may be that by confronting the radicals, Mr Mesa has found a way to weaken them. He remains the most popular politician: outside Santa Cruz, 67% of urban Bolivians support him. Mr Morales, meanwhile, is looking less formidable. Although his party won more votes than any other in December's municipal elections, it failed to win a single provincial capital. Its vote of 18% was less than Mr Morales gained in the 2002 presidential election.

The test of Mr Mesa's relationship with Congress will be the energy law, which will set new conditions for private firms in the extraction and sale of oil and gas. Last July Bolivians approved a referendum to give the state a stronger role in the industry. But Mr Mesa knows that Bolivia cannot do without private investment and income from fuel exports. The pact with Congress was widely interpreted to mean that the president's draft law, which investors regard as “confiscatory”, would prevail over one passed in the lower house of Congress, which they deem “impossible”. Nevertheless, congressional leaders have since hinted that they will persist with their version. If that happens, “nothing has changed,” says Carlos López, a consultant to the energy industry.

If Mr Mesa survives to 2007, a vital part of his job will be to help supply Bolivia with the missing raw materials of democracy. He belongs to no party; Mr Morales, still one of the main candidates to succeed him, is more a rabble-rouser than a politician. The traditional parties are regarded as corrupt beyond redemption.

This vacuum could be filled in part by provincial governors to be elected under the autonomy plan. Mr Toranzo points to the emergence of new parties in the municipal elections, such as the centrist Movement Without Fear, as possible ingredients of the new order. Mr Mesa has “three years to build another political system”. If he is lucky.

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