Constituent Assembly of Bolivia
The Constituent Assembly of Bolivia ( Spanish Asamblea Constituyente ) was a democratic instrument of direct citizen participation in Bolivia . Their only goal was to draft the current constitution of the country. The legal basis was Articles 2, 4 and 232 of the constitution at the time, as well as the Ley Especial de Convocatoria a la Asamblea Constituyente (“Law for the Convening of the Constituent Assembly”), which was passed on this basis . The Asamblea Constituyente started work on August 6, 2006.
Historical outline
After Bolivia's return to democracy in 1982 there were first attempts to revise the constitution in 1990, when the indigenous people from the lowlands organized their march Por la dignidad, la tierra y el territorio ("For dignity, soil and land"). The constitutional reform of 1994 finally recognized the multicultural and multiethnic character of the country without significantly improving the situation of the indigenous people. From 2000 the protests grew in strength and influence. In 2002 the march was repeated, this time with the participation of the indigenous people from the highlands and the call for a new constitution.
The then President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada tried to appease the protests in 2003 by promising a revision of the constitution by a constituent assembly. However, the proposal no longer saved his government. He resigned in the fall and made way for the interim government under Carlos Mesa . After the Constitutional Court found the possibility of a new Constituent Assembly to be incompatible with the constitution of the time, Mesa created this possibility with the help of the Ley Especial de Reforma Constitutional 2004 ("Special Act on the Constitutional Reform [of] 2004") by redesigning Articles 4 and 232 the Constitution.
The government under Evo Morales , elected in December 2005, used the new constitutional articles and on March 4, 2006 unanimously passed the Ley Especial de Convocatoria a la Asamblea Constituyente ("Special Act to Convene the Constituent Assembly").
procedure
The election of the 255 MPs ( Diputados ) took place on July 2, 2006, the assembly started on August 6 (the Bolivian national holiday for independence from Spain 1825) its work. The Diputados were paid like MPs during the Asamblea period and enjoyed parliamentary immunity .
210 MPs were elected in the 70 constituencies. The strongest list in the constituency received 2 seats, the second strongest one seat. 45 members were appointed in the 9 departments. The strongest list received 2 seats, the second strongest one, the third and fourth strongest also one. If the third or fourth strongest list did not achieve 5% of the votes, they did not get a seat, this was distributed to the other lists according to the result. Due to the distribution of the constituencies, the regional distribution of MPs resulted: Department La Paz 50 deputies, Department Santa Cruz 44, Department Cochabamba 35, Department Potosí 29, Department Chuquisaca 23, Department Oruro 20, Department Tarija 20, Department Beni 20 and Department Pando 14th
As a result, the left-wing party MAS ( Movimiento al Socialismo ) of President Evo Morales received an absolute majority with 154 members, but it failed to achieve a 2/3 majority.
The Asamblea Constituyente planned 6 months to 1 year for the drafting of the constitution. The new constitution had to be passed with a 2/3 majority, so that the ruling MAS had to come to an agreement with other political parties and could not implement its ideas alone. After the Asamblea had agreed on a draft, it had to be confirmed by the population in a constitutional referendum in order to come into force. This required an absolute majority of the registered voters. Had this not been achieved, the old constitution would have remained in force. The draft constitution, which came about after long delays due to internal political tensions and violent confrontations, was adopted by the Bolivian people with a clear majority on January 25, 2009.
Autonomy referendum
The new constitution should also contain a statute of autonomy for the departments . To this end, a referendum was held on July 2, 2006 at the same time as the election of the members of the Asamblea Constituyente, in which the individual departments determined whether they wanted to fall under this statute of autonomy. A simple majority of the votes cast was required. After a long dispute, the parties had agreed that the decision would be binding on the Asamblea Constituyente. The legal basis was the Ley de Convocatoria Nacional al Reférendum para las Autonomías Departemantales ("Law on the convening of a national referendum on the autonomy of the Departamentos") according to Article 4 of the old constitution. In the four departments of Beni , Pando , Santa Cruz and Tarija ( Media Luna ), located in the eastern lowlands, the majority voted for autonomy, in the other five departments in the western highlands ( Cochabamba , Chuquisaca , Oruro , La Paz and Potosí ) the majority voted against autonomy and for the maintenance of a centralized state.