Autonomías & Santa Cruz & referendum

04.05.2005

This week, after a long wait & much dramatics, Bolivia's National Electoral Court yesterday verified signatures calling for a referendum on regional autonomies. That virtually guarantees a referendum on whether to grant regions autonomy; Santa Cruz will spearhead the "Sí" campaign. The new 2004 Bolivian constitution allows citizen-initiated referenda.

It's unclear, at this time, what the question(s) will be. But it'll no doubt include whether or not the nine departments should be able to elect their own prefects (currently appointed by the national president), and some question about whether resources allocation should be weighed in favor of departments providing material resources. It'll be interesting to note whether the referendum must pass nation-wide, or on a department-by-department basis. If Santa Cruz votes 80% "sí", but the nation votes 51% "no" — what happens?

Posted by Miguel at 08:16 PM

Comments

If it fails it will be mostly Santa Cruz' fault. I've consistently said that local autonomies could potentially be a positive thing for addressing local needs (if institutional reforms accompany it). However, SC's stance of only looking out for themselves showed their true colors of how they really feel about the rest of the country.

I think to be safe it should only talk about the election of Prefects and/or that additional changes to be discussed in the Constituent Assembly.

I think a lot of people think the question will be "Do you want autonomy?" Yes or No. I assume that question was used to gather all those signatures, although I am probably wrong.

Posted by: eduardo at April 5, 2005 09:08 PM

I think it'll be widely supported. As far as I could tell, each department has been supprtive of autonomy. The problems will be on the kind of autonomy.

Posted by: MB at April 6, 2005 07:37 AM