Bolivia Today: Ruptures, Inertia and Challenges

Abstract

The arrival of Evo Morales to power in January of 2006 –supported with an unprecedent 54% of the votes– marked a milestone in Bolivian political history and opened the way to an ambitious project of re-foundation of the country. Those events were translated in the call for a Constituent Assembly and in the nationalization of hydrocarbons, within the framework of a strong “ruralización de la política”. More than five years of that one triumph has passed and after a re-election with 64% of the votes in December 2009 that consolidated the “evista” hegemonyhas declined.  Now the government faces a series of challenges tied to the effective materialization of the change proposed in the re-foundational speeches. This article analyses the novel experience of “Indians in the power” centered in the tension between the changes implemented and the inertias of the past in spheres such as the democratic radicalization, the social equality, the model of development, and the political project. All these themes affected by a powerful, and yet somehow vague objective: the decolonization of the country.