Referendum

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• ECUADOR: Constitutional assembly bid clears first hurdle

  12 July 2010 Hits: 218

  It was only under strong pressure from massed protesters that the Ecuadorean congress finally agreed, on 31 January, to hold a referendum on whether to convene a constituent assembly 'fully empowered' to rewrite the country's constitution. The formation of a slender majority in favour of the referendum was only made possible when the government accepted a condition: that the constituent assembly be barred from cutting short the mandates of the president and the legislators.

  The swing vote that decided the day in favour of the government's proposal came from the Partido Sociedad Patriótica (PSP), led by the ousted former president Lucio Gutiérrez. There was more than a little irony in this. Gutiérrez had himself attempted to create a constituent assembly to reform Ecuador's political system, which would have entailed early legislative elections under new rules. He failed because he lacked the necessary support in congress to obtain authorisation to call elections for the assembly, and when he tried to sidestep congress and call a referendum on his own authority, he ended up being deposed on a trumped-up charge of having abandoned his post.

  Correa, whose comfortable victory in a run-off last year had not been foreseen by most of the opinion pollsters, deliberately chose not to field any congressional candidates, as a token of his determination to create a constituent assembly. Like Evo Morales in Bolivia, Correa wanted an assembly with full powers rather than one with a limited brief. Because this would have implied the power to replace the existing institutions, including the legislature, the parties currently represented in congress feel threatened. The one which emerged with the largest bloc, Alvaro Noboa's populist Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional (Prian), with 28 out of 100 seats, has already adopted the position that any reform of the constitution must be conducted by congress. This stance is shared by the conservative Partido Social Cristiano (PSC), with its much-diminished bloc of 12 legislators.

  Correa, without a legislative bloc of his own, worked hard to put together an alliance to neutralise the PRIAN-PSC entente. Early on he received pledges of support from several unions, the umbrella indigenous organisation, Confederación de Nacionalidades Indí­genas del Ecuador (Conaie), its political arm, the Movimiento Indí­gena Pachakutik (MIP) and the leftwing Movimiento Popular Democrático (MPD). The latter two jointly command 10 votes in congress, which meant that Correa still had to swing two decisive blocs, those of the PSP, with 24 seats, and the social-democratic Izquierda Democrática (ID), with 15.

  Gutiérrez initially held out, conditioning any support for the Correa administration upon a decision by the government to prosecute outgoing president Alfredo Palacio and others for having staged what Gutiérrez considers a coup against him. This Correa refused to do. In the end the PSP relented and voted with the pro-referendum camp, in a session made easier by the anti-referendum camp's decision to walk out, in the hope of leaving congress inquorate.

  The electoral tribunal, TSE, has set the date for the referendum on 15 April, almost a month later than the government had proposed. This has not settled the matter. Conaie and other pro-constituent assembly groups have stated that they will campaign against the constraint congress has placed upon the assembly. Correa himself has announced that the moment a constituent assembly is in place he will place his resignation at its disposal, a gesture which will increase the pressure on congress to do likewise.

  Opinion surveys show 78% support for a constituent assembly, and Correa's approval rating, at 71%, towering over that of congress (13%). The drafting content of the proposed reforms will be entrusted to a commission formed by eight members of the council of universities and one representative of the executive, which will also 'coordinate' the proposals independently submitted by social organisations.

  Details regarding the composition of the constituent assembly have yet to be worked out, as well as the assembly's modus operandi. Once the new constitution is approved by the assembly it will have to be submitted to the electorate in a new referendum.

  

  

  

• BOLIVIA: Morales backtracks to save constituent assembly

  12 July 2010 Hits: 197

  According to the established schedule, on 6 August the Bolivian electorate was meant to vote in a referendum on the new constitution emerging from the labours of the constituent assembly. It is now highly probable that the assembly's deadline will be extended, and still to be decided is how to apply an all-party agreement under which any proposed amendments failing to gain two-thirds approval must also be submitted to a referendum.

  The assembly only got around to start work on the new constitution on 26 February, six months and 23 days after being installed. The delay was almost entirely due to the attempt by the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) to change the assembly's rules so as to allow approval of the amendments by simple majority rather than the legally stipulated two-thirds. This stipulation, which is standard for legislation of constitutional import throughout Latin America, is meant to ensure that the basic charter enjoys broad consensus.

  The MAS attracted 50.7% of the vote for members of the assembly, which translated into 137 of the 255 seats. Together with allied parties it was able to increase its strength to 152 seats - still 18 short of two-thirds. The opposition refused to budge on its demand for the two-thirds threshold to be respected, even when the pro-government camp sought to intimidate it through mass mobilisations. It was not until 14 February that a compromise was reached. This consists in a two-track treatment of amendments. Those attracting a two-thirds majority would go straight to the commission charged with reconciling the final text. Those attracting only a simple majority but falling short of two-thirds would be submitted to the electorate in a referendum.

  The mechanics of this referendum were not spelt out in any detail. It was not established whether the 'second-tier' amendments would be submitted to the popular vote before the scheduled referendum on approval of the full reform package, or whether the electorate would be able to pick which of the 'second-tier' amendments it accepted and which it rejected. In any case, the main parties have privately agreed that the time available to deal with all proposed amendments (as yet not formally submitted) will not suffice. A consensus has reportedly been reached on an extension of a few months, which might mean shunting final approval by referendum into 2008.

  Government and opposition have managed to agree on the composition of the 21 committees in which the various chapters of the constitution will be treated. There has been no explicit agreement yet, however, on a key issue: the departmental autonomy demanded by the Media Luna departments, approved in a referendum by their electorates, but rejected by the government and its supporters.

  Why Morales relented
  That the government has relented at all on the two-thirds requirement is largely attributable to its realisation that its strategy of relying on mass mobilisations to cow the opposition was not only failing to achieve its objective, but was actually creating the risk that the government might be outflanked by its more radical followers, and that these might converge with a far left that has taken to portraying Morales's reforms as 'too soft on the oligarchy' and foreign business interests.

  When it called for mobilisations against the pro-autonomy camp, it found itself having to reverse a departmental coup staged by its own followers to oust the pro-autonomy governor of Cochabamba. Only the emergency created by the floods unleashed by El Niño averted a similar situation in La Paz.  

  In Camiri, in the southern oil-bearing department of Tarija, it had to send in troops to contain protest actions by local civic organisations demanding 'true nationalisation' of the hydrocarbons sector (before acceding to some of their other demands). At about the same time it was forced to make concessions to Fencomin, the federation of mining cooperatives which had been an important source of support for Morales's campaign, after it brought La Paz to a standstill in a protest against increased taxes on mining.

  Reaching out to the middle classes
  That these events have forced the Morales government to reassess its stance was made clear by Vice-President Alvaro Garcí­a Linera in late February. He admitted that the government, through some of its ministries, had been 'sending messages that were perhaps equivocal, which acted to the detriment of our relationship with certain middle sectors' of society. He said that the government would henceforth 'suspend this unnecessary rhetoric, particularly because it does not reflect what we are doing in practice' and would emphasise 'one and a thousand times [that Morales] respects religion and wholesome entrepreneurial activity, and guarantees private activity in education and healthcare.' This change, he suggested, would result in halting 'the erosion of [the government's] credibility among the middle sectors.'

  Garcí­a Linera also offered a conciliatory interpretation of the tug-of-war over the two-thirds issue in the constituent assembly. 'Our fear,' he said, 'was that the forces that did not want the assembly and wanted it to fail would prevail. That is still our fear. For its part, the democratic opposition fear that the MAS would trample the assembly underfoot and fail to take the minorities into account. Both were legitimate fears.' Obliquely, the vice-president hinted that it was no easy task to get the ruling party to hew to the government line. He described the MAS as a 'confederation of social movements' lacking a monolithic or even vertical structure.

  MAS's controversial blueprint
  While the ruling MAS has yet to produce formal draft amendments to the existing constitution, in mid-2006, before the election of the representatives to the constituent assembly, it outlined its main proposals in a document entitled Refundar Bolivia ('Re-founding Bolivia'). This document starts by redefining Bolivian history as that of the 'indigenous-popular resistance to discrimination and poverty' and stating that the indigenous peoples have the right to 'self-determination and territoriality'; the recognition of their political systems and selection of authorities; the management of their collective resources according to their own traditions and customs; the practice of their traditional medicine; and the exercise of 'differentiated political rights and citizenship, according to their usage and customs'.

  Other key proposals are:

  -Bolivia will become a 'plural, participative, communitarian and representative democracy, based on the diversity of people, for the elimination of all forms of colonialism, segregation and discrimination'. It will foster 'the mechanisms of consensual democracy practiced in the [indigenous] communities'.  

  -Quechua and Aymara will join Spanish as official languages. The multicoloured flag of the indigenous movement known as the wiphala (or huipala) will be afforded the same recognition as the current red, yellow and green flag.  

  -The branches of government - executive, legislative and judicial - will be selected 'through universal suffrage and through traditional community systems of decision-making and forms of election.'  

  -Judges and magistrates 'will be elected by universal, direct vote' but 'the national juridical structures will incorporate the forms of administering justice of the indigenous peoples [...] Decisions imposed by the [indigenous] authority will be effective and valid before the ordinary courts, the police and all other instances of the state.'

  -Economically, Bolivia is defined as 'a communitarian social economy with private property'; natural resources are 'social property' whose management under a régime of sustainable development is delegated to the state, and all natural and energy resources are 'under the inalienable and unextinguishable dominion of the state'.

• VENEZUELA: Chávez goes for indefinite reelection & 'socialism'

  12 July 2010 Hits: 794

  Upon his reelection in December 2006, President Hugo Chávez has recast his intention to seek a constitutional amendment which will allow indefinite presidential reelection. He is presenting this now as part of a package meant to establish in Venezuela what he calls '21st century socialism'. He will be submitting his proposal for a new round of constitutional reforms to the electorate in a referendum, which he has hinted could take place this very year.

  Chávez had expected the opposition to boycott the presidential election, and had threatened to counter this by calling a referendum on a constitutional amendment which would remove the existing constraint on presidential reelection (just one consecutive term) and allow him to go on seeking reelection indefinitely. The strong showing of the opposition (37% of the vote) appears to have persuaded him that he should pursue this option regardless.

  Upon taking office for the third time (the second under the 1999 constitution), Chávez announced that he would be setting up a commission, headed by the president of the national assembly, to prepare a 'profound and integral' reform of the 1999 constitution. Among the new reforms he now proposes are: (1) a provision for indefinite presidential reelection: (2) the redrawing of internal administrative boundaries; (3) the replacement of mayoralties and municipal councils with 'communal' councils directly subordinated to the presidency; and (4) the elimination of the partial autonomy enjoyed by the central bank.

  Separately, Chávez has announced a drive to merge the constellation of pro-government parties and organisations into a single party, under the wing of his Movimiento Quinta República (MVR). As part of his 'transit towards socialism' he said his government would proceed to the 'total nationalisation' of the country's hydrocarbons and electricity sectors - which means that the state intends to take a majority stake in all hydrocarbons ventures and in the power utilities, a formula already been applied to conventional oil contracts.