Andean Group - December 2006 (ISSN 1741-4466)

President Evo Morales got his way on land reform, just as he did gas contracts with foreign energy companies. The opposition-controlled senate approved a controversial land reform bill on 28 November after a long impasse and a rancorous exchange between Morales, the powerful Comités Civicos representing landowners in the prosperous east of the country, and opposition prefects. The dubious manner in which the bill was passed is likely to lead to a legal challenge.

On 22 November the opposition, which controls 14 of the 27 seats in the senate, boycotted the session so that the land bill could not be debated due to a lack of quorum. Earlier in the month Morales called on thousands of indigenous peasants to march on La Paz to insist that the senate approve the bill. As they converged on the capital, and amid threats from Morales to dissolve the senate in favour of a unicameral congress, the senate surprisingly approved the bill by 15 votes to 12 in a late night session. 

The opposition is likely to challenge the constitutionality of the vote: two suplentes (replacements), Abraham Araujo Cuéllar of the opposition Unidad Nacional and Andrés Fermí­n Heredia Guzmán of Podemos (both from Pando) took the place of two boycotting senators. The president of the senate, Santos Ramí­rez of the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), ruled that the suplentes could be summoned to meetings when elected senators are boycotting senate sessions. They normally only do this when a senator is ill or abroad. In addition, Senator Héctor Mario Vargas Rivera, a Podemos representative of Beni, decided to vote in favour of the bill. 

One irate senator from Podemos burst into the senate, smashed some windows and tried to forcefully drag fellow senators from the room in a bid to curtail the session. The opposition also claims that the government bribed the suplentes and Vargas Rivera, with US$100,000 each, to turn up. President Morales denied this: "We have not paid; we have dignity and honour."

What does the land reform bill mean?

It is not crystal clear what the modifications to the national institute for agrarian reform (INRA) law are but here are the main points:

• The government will redistribute non-productive estates to the 2.5m farmers who are "without land or who possess insufficient lands." Most of the land involved in the reform is in the lush east of the country. 
• The government hopes to redistribute 199,500 square kilometres of land by the end of his term in 2011.
• The government will cap the growth of medium-sized and big farms. 

The large landowners, or latifundistas, fear that the government is intent on confiscating their private property and dishing out their land to peasants without the means to make productive use of it. Before the vote Morales devoted some time attempting to assuage their fears by stressing that the government will respect properties that were obtained legally and are productive, irrespective of their size. 

They will not have been impressed by the triumphalism that greeted the passage of the bill, however. "Legally, constitutionally, we will end the latifundio," Morales said. "We will not take land by force but with the law in our hands."Worth noting: The senate also approved the 44 new oil contracts with 12 foreign oil companies (see RA-06-11).