NINA AGRAWAL, RICHARD ANDRÉ, RYAN BERGER, AND WILDA ESCARFULLER Political Representation, Policy & Inclusion
BOLIVIA
Historically, political iden- tity for Indigenous peoples in Bolivia was structured
more around the peasant agrarian
struggle than around ethnicity. The
pattern of internal migration from
rural areas to urban centers in the
1970s and 1980s, however, began to
shift the Indigenous discourse to a
greater emphasis on land rights as
a means of preserving cultural heritage, and eroded the foundations of
traditional political parties.
Social movements emerged during
this time as a tool to mobilize disparate ethnic and labor interests and give
a political voice to their demands. Out
of these movements and a 1990 March
for Territory and Dignity came Evo Morales, an Aymara coca grower. Morales
founded the Movimiento al Socialismo
(Movement for Socialism—MAS) in
1995, which has become the banner
for the majority of Indigenous representation in contemporary Bolivia.
Morales has served as president of Bolivia since January 2006.
NOAH FRIEDMAN-RUDOVSK Y/POLARIS
MAS is legally a political party, but
operationally it is a confederation of
social movements, labor movements
and left-leaning intellectuals. In
the 2009–2014 congressional term,
all 43 members of the Indigenous
delegation are from MAS, with
many of them appointed directly
by member social movements.
However, given the heterogeneity
of the Indigenous population in
Bolivia—there are 36 Indigenous
languages spoken in a country of
nearly 10 million people—it would
be a mistake to ascribe to MAS the
role of the sole, uncontested party of
Bolivia’s Indigenous peoples.
Bolivia’s 2009 Constitution, approved 27 years after the transition to
democracy, changed both the name
AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG
and the composition of the legislature to reflect the country’s plural
identities. The new Asamblea Legis-lativa Plurinacional (Plurinational
Legislative Assembly) encompasses
a 137-seat Chamber of Deputies with
seven reserved seats for race- and
ethnicity-based peoples, and a 36-
seat Senate with four senators from
each of Bolivia’s nine departments.
The seven reserved seats are apportioned to the seven departments
with the highest ethnic constituen-cies. The nominees are appointed by
traditional customs but voted on by
the entire department.
In our research, we focused on the
level of Indigenous representation
over four congressional sessions and
found that it increased in each term,
with the highest point achieved in
the current Plurinational Legislative
Assembly. At the same time, the ten-
dency of Indigenous representatives
to collectively support legislation that
affects Indigenous communities also
increased, from 50 percent doing so
during the 1989–1993 congressional
period—on one Indigenous-related
bill that was introduced by a non-
Indigenous representative—to 100
percent today. This occurred as Indig-
enous representation and its partisan
differentiation increased. Although
Indigenous representatives have
never formed a bancada (caucus), they
have tended to vote as a bloc.
National Congress, 1989–1993
The only bill proposed by Indigenous
Victor Hugo Cárdenas, an Indigenous Aymara, served as Bolivia’s vice president
from 1993 to 1997. Read his AQ profile on p. 80.
Americas Quarterly SPRING 2012
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