Bolivia Writes a New Constitution: What do you Want to Know?

The news this week in Bolivia is dominated by two stories – the striking Huanuni miners, who have blockaded the road between La Paz and Cochabamba, and Bolivia’s disappointing tie yesterday in a vastly watched futbol match against Peru, which knocked Bolivia out of competition for the Copa America championships. In Cochabamba, both those stories seem overshadowed by local complaints about the cold weather. Cochabambinos declare that they are living in Antarctica every time the thermometer drops far enough to require a sweater.

However, the long-term story, one of them, remains the fractious Constituent Assembly underway in Sucre, where delegates from left to right are trying to reach consensus on a new national constitution. The task is not easy in a nation as regionally, culturally, ideologically and politically fractured as Bolivia is at the moment. But to be sure, sorting out the nation’s vision in harsh words in Sucre is a good deal better than sorting it out with tossed dynamite and violent conflict – the likely alternative.

The new constitution was supposed to be wrapped up by August 6, Bolivia’s Independence Day, but delegates formally admitted this week that the chances of that were about as likely as Evo Morales becoming one of “Las Magnificas” (Santa Cruz’s famed supermodels). So in the first real consensus so far, they agreed to give themselves another four months.

There has been ample foreign attention aimed at the constitutional rumble in Sucre, most of it from analysts who haven’t actually been there. We here at The Democracy Center haven’t written much about the Assembly, given its importance in Bolivian politics at the moment. But that is mainly because we haven’t been there either.

This month we will remedy that by sending a team (both Bolivian and U.S.) to Sucre, with instructions to camp out there until they have talked to a solid number of people from all sides and perspectives. What are the main issues being debated? What are the differences that divide the parties? Who are all those people serving as delegates and what do they actually do all day? Come the next deadline, what is likely to happen?

Those are some of our questions, but we’d like to know yours. If you have things you’d like us to look into in Sucre, post those ideas here as comments. We can’t guarantee getting to every curiosity our readers have, but we’ll do our best. We hope to have our report ready by the end of this month.