Constitution for the "cocaleros"

Bolivia's President hands over "power to the people"

Leftist leaders in Latin America are gripped by constitutional fever. The passions for Hugo Chavez's constitutional reform (which was rejected by the majority of Venezuelans on December 2) had hardly subsided when a similar scenario emerged in Bolivia. The country's Constitutional Assembly is due on December 14 to complete work on introducing 408 changes to more than 100 articles of the constitution adopted in 1967. The project will then be put to a referendum. Bolivia's basic law has changed only once in 40 years: in 1994, an amendment was introduced that increased the presidential term from four to five years.

The 48-year-old Bolivian President Evo Morales, who won the elections in 2005, instructed members of the assembly to rework the text of the constitution back in August 2006. Last month, deputies approved the draft reform as a whole, but work on the text has not yet been completed. In addition, Morales' initiatives to expropriate businesses and land caused opposition marches.

Like his Venezuelan counterpart, the Bolivian president sympathizes with the Bolshevik principle of “plunder the loot” and has even surpassed his idol in many ways. In February, Morales nationalized the metallurgical enterprise of the Swiss company Glencore, and a few days ago he signed a decree on the expropriation of landowners' lands in southeastern Bolivia to transfer them to the indigenous population - the Guarani Indians. Complete nationalization of the oil, gas and energy sectors was completed in 2006.

However, unlike the Venezuelan leader, the Bolivian president is not yet in a hurry to legitimize his lifelong rule. According to him, the task of constitutional reform is to improve the lives of the indigenous Indian population. Changes to the constitution could lead to increased Indian representation in parliament and, in the president's words, "devolve power to the people."

Indians make up more than half of Bolivia's population of eight million. Many of them are engaged in the cultivation of coca (the raw material for the production of cocaine) and are “slaved” by drug cartels. Morales himself, who comes from a poor family and is the first Indian president in the history of Bolivia, heads not only the Movement Toward Socialism party, but also the coca growers' union, the Cocaleros. In addition to Chavez, he considers Fidel Castro and another Cuban revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevara, to be his political idols.

Nikolay GOLYGIN