Total Recall in Bolivia: Divided Nation Faces Historic Vote

Bolivia's president, vice president and eight of nine departmental governors are the subject of an upcoming recall vote.

Some opposition governors and their supporters will likely not respect the results of the recall vote, or even participate in it at all. Vice president Linera recently told reporters that "They will probably boycott some regions, those where they know will lose. I believe they are laying the grounds for some sort of boycott on August 10 to create conflicts." It is also not entirely clear if the recall vote will proceed at all. Magistrate Silvia Salame, the only judge on Bolivia's Constitutional Tribunal Court, has called on the National Electoral Court to postpone the recall vote until challenges to the vote's legality are considered. Government officials in the Morales administration said they would ignore her decision because the Tribunal requires three votes, not one, to make a decision. Salame is on the only judge serving on the court at this time. In response, Bolivian Electoral Court President José Luis Exeni stated the recall vote would proceed as planned.

While debates over the recall vote go on, controversy continues to surround how to best use Bolivia's gas and oil wealth. Right wing governors and civic leaders in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando are demanding more funding from the profits of the oil and gas industry, which was partially nationalized by the Morales administration on May 1, 2006. Opposition leaders denounce that the Morales government redirected $166 million dollars from oil and gas tax revenue into a new pension plan that currently gives $315 dollars per year to Bolivians over 60 years old. Right wing governors have threatened to go on a hunger strike on August 4 in protest of the policy. Yet what the opposition doesn't acknowledge in their pleas is that their departments now receive many times more funding from the gas industry this year than they did in 2005 thanks to the Morales administration's nationalization policies and renegotiations with private and foreign gas companies.

Meanwhile, Washington's influence in the coca-producing Chapare region of Bolivia is waning, and Morales' is strengthening his own relations with other Latin American leaders as he presses forward with progressive economic and development policies.