Morales decides to speed up the democratic revolution in Bolivia

Cochabamba, Bolivia, January 5 (PL)

The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, asked for the support of the social organisations in order to conduct his “democratic and cultural revolution” from government, in front of the continued delay in the Constituent Assembly, the media reported today.

To achieve this objective, Morales challenged his ministers, vice ministers, parliamentarians and constituent delegates who were participating in the meeting in Cochabamba to evaluate the work of the executive, to work with more dedication and intensity.

According to the daily newspaper La Razon, the president explained that, after the installing of the Constituent Assembly, he thought that the necessary structural changes would be worked out in the constituent forum, which is why he concentrated on social issues.

He added that as the months went by, in a conversation with the vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera and some ministers he realised that the deep changes, the transformations, will not come through the assembly.

“Change, the democratic and cultural revolution is in the hands of the government together with the social sectors” said Morales in front of 300 people and leaders of the social and trade union movement aligned with the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).

He indicated that only the mobilisation of society and a grand capacity to carry out a transparent management “will make this process unstoppable”.

In this sense, he asked the parliamentarians to accompany this process with the approval of priority laws such as the struggle against corruption and investigation of fortunes, universal health security, and the new education law amongst others.

During the first day of evaluation of the management of the executive, legislative and constituent power, the biggest discrepancies were found in the constituent assembly, which is still debate which voting model to adopt.

In regards to this, Morales spoke of redirecting the constituent assembly via a new strategy.

We will have a meeting to see how we can improve the conduct of all the assembly delegates, not only ours. If there isn’t real clarity, it will be difficult to guarantee that that constituent assembly will end up being a success, he pointed out.

The biggest problems of a political character that confronted the government in its first year of work arose from the constituent assembly.

In fact, four regions – Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija – together with the opposition parties, headed actions to pressure this forum into accepting two third votes, and threaten to organise divisive autonomies.

In the meeting, MAS raised the banner of autonomy within the legal norms as a demand of the indigenous peoples and arranged of its defence in all spheres.

At the same time, the social activists and government identified the emergence of a new opposition in the regions, comprised of the prefects and the civic leaders, which constitute a real threat for the political project of MAS.

This opposition, according to vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera, does not have a leader, does not have a program, but clearly is already a political project.

Garcia identified that it is precisely this bloc that is raising the banner of autonomy. The autonomy initiative is ours, but we need to reject separatist autonomy. Self-determination is an idea that needs to be rescued by our movement, he proposed.

Translated from Prensa Latina