May 2, 2009 – La Paz and Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Carter Center delegation day 6

On our second day in Bolivia, we received a surprise in learning shortly before our scheduled meeting that the president of the National Electoral Court had resigned.  Bolivia is scheduled to have presidential and assembly elections on Dec. 6 of this year to comply with the new constitution (approved Jan. 25, 2009).  Getting to these elections has been difficult as negotiations were required within the Congress to pass the law authorizing the elections and a breakdown in the talks led to a hunger strike by President Morales for several days.  A compromise was reached that included an ambitious plan to provide a completely new voter's registration list based on newly-collected biometric data of all eligible voters – ten fingerprints and a photo collected in a national digital database.  Even with international assistance, the feasibility of reregistering the three million voters, acquiring the technology to do it, and producing the new lists for political parties to check them against other national registration lists in time for the December elections was strongly debated within the National Electoral Council and remains a matter of debate.

The government immediately replaced the president of the Electoral Court with a woman who had served previously on the Court prior to the Morales administration (from about 2001-2005) and is well-respected for her knowledge and professionalism.  We hope that this appointment will help to solidify confidence in the Electoral Court and the electoral process during this crucial year for Bolivia.

On Saturday morning, we had a warm and productive meeting with President Morales at the Presidential Palace during which we discussed the need to improve U.S. relations and move towards the exchange of U.S. ambassadors once again, following the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador (along with the DEA and part of AID) from Bolivia last fall.  In addition, President Carter asked President Morales to reiterate his welcome to the Peace Corps to return its volunteers to Bolivia.  The Peace Corps had withdrawn the volunteers last fall after some public comments that volunteers might be involved in intelligence activities for the U.S. government (or that volunteers may be asked to provide information to the U.S. government) led the Peace Corps to be concerned about the safety of its volunteers in Bolivia.  President Carter's mother (at age 70!) and grandson were Peace Corps volunteers and he felt very strongly about the importance of their return.  President Morales did publicly welcome back the Peace Corps after our meeting.

We also discussed with President Morales the upcoming elections, in which he expressed his desire that The Carter Center serve as election observers, along with the European Union, the OAS, and others. Another issue that came up in both Ecuador and Bolivia was strong tension between the private media and the government.  In Bolivia, media directors told us of their concern about not receiving access to government press conferences in La Paz and about disparaging remarks by the President about individual journalists and media outlets that can put them in danger from overzealous government supporters.  The President, on the other hand, spoke of his concern about distorted news reporting and the political role of private media linked to political opposition groups.  Media relations in polarized societies is an issue we have dealt with before, particularly in Venezuela, and we have seen how these tensions can contribute to conflict and deepen polarization in harmful ways. 

Before leaving La Paz, we visited a well-known women's group in El Alto – the Bartolina Sisa – to get a sense of how one social movement was promoting its rights.  The women spoke eloquently of past gender and racial discrimination and how they had fought to include greater equality in the new constitution, including quotas on the candidate lists for women in the National Assembly elections.

Departing La Paz Saturday afternoon, we flew to Santa Cruz to meet the prefects (governors) of the departments who have been in the opposition to the Morales administration and which also voted for autonomy last year.  The prefects expressed their disagreements with aspects of the constitution and the process by which it was drafted, but they did not question the legitimacy of the president as the elected national leader, and they planned to participate in the upcoming national elections mandated by the new constitution.  They expressed concerns about the weak institutions in the country – the fact that the Constitutional Court has not functioned for several years, among other things; certain aspects of the electoral process – the voter's list and the impartiality of the National Electoral Court; and the judicial harassment of opposition leaders, including a number of judicial suits against each of them.  They acknowledged the demand for change in the country, but opposed the manner with which it was being carried out, which they described as imposed by the governing party and the president in an authoritarian style rather than one of negotiation and consensus-building.

Overall, the visit highlighted the important changes occurring in the country in response to a strong demand for such change, but also the deep polarization within the country – geographic, cultural, and social. 

source : Dr. Jennifer McCoy, Director
Carter Center Americas Program