AFTER THE DICTATORSHIP: “BOLIVIA, A FEDERAL PARLIAMENTARY REPUBLIC”

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
August 17, 2018

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Upon reaching 193 years since the declaration of Bolivia’s independence, Bolivians know their country is subjected to a dictatorship and are mobilized to recoup democracy, demand that the referendum of 21 Feb of 2016 which overwhelmingly said NO to Evo Morales whim to indefinitely remain in power, be abided by.   The dictatorship has promoted national division, has eliminated the Republic, exacerbates presidentialism and uses centralism as a means of oppression and blackmail.  In defeating the dictatorship, it is now necessary to; recoup the unity of the Bolivian people, construct democracy, and organize institutionalism with a new way of organizing the State and a different governmental system.  It is time to organize society politically in accord to a reality that identifies Bolivia as a “Federal Parliamentary Republic”.

The chieftainship, authoritarianism, political patronage, messianism and relativism in abiding by the law, are Bolivian and Latin-American cultural traits that lead to political instability and are useful in justifying the apparent solution with a greater ill that are dictatorships.  Bolivia’s history is a clear example of these traits that make out of politics the most needed and at the same time the most undesirable of activities.

Evo Morales’ dictatorship in Bolivia is a criminal model of Cuban-Venezuelan transnational intervention that has setup mechanisms and nomenclatures in Bolivia with which the so-called 21^st Century Socialism or Castroist Chavist system has sought to control the region.  They have created new States in Venezuela and Bolivia and have setup others, such as Nicaragua and Ecuador, to have total and indefinite control of the government with despicable laws, judicialized political repression, control of the press, domesticated or controlled opposition, illicit enrichment, narcotics’ trafficking, and the elimination of national independence with a antiimperialist discourse.

The same way that is in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, the use of force is the backbone of the dictator Morales in Bolivia.  Through a series of crimes, he has supplanted the Republic for a Plurinational State with the open objective of destroying the “Bolivian nation”.  In pursuing the destruction of the national identity, he has modified all the homeland’s symbols, has changed the educational curriculum, has supplanted the values and principles of the Republic, has rejected the homeland’s heroes, has revitalized and multiplied the fight between classes, sectors, regions, and cultures.  He is in the process of changing the nation’s Armed Forces’ doctrine to turn them into dictatorial regime forces similar to those in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Corruption is only surpassed by imagination, impunity has been institutionalized, and the country is now identified as a narco-state.  Morales, who started out with the appearance of a populist president is the owner of lives and haciendas, supported by an inner circle of millionaires that he has created with corruption and narcotics’ trafficking and their complicity.  He controls all branches of the government and the country is his fiefdom that he is gradually turning over -at whim- to foreign powers.   In order to take power and impose his regime, this Bolivian Castroist Chavist dictator has committed more than 20 bloody massacres that he covers up by attributing these crimes to the victims.  Morales has been in power nearly 13 years and pretends to indefinitely continue in power.

In Bolivia there is no Government, there are no rights or justice, there are no checks and balances of a presidentialism system.  To regain democracy, we must understand that this is about regaining freedom for Bolivians and the independence of their homeland.  It is of utmost need now to address the basis that will construct the post Castroist Chavist dictatorship Bolivia as a “Federal Parliamentary Republic”.

Republic is “a way of organizing a Government whose top authority is elected by the citizenry for a determined period”.  It is the opposite to unjust governments such as those of; despotism, tyranny, dictatorship.  It is “the way of government governed by the common interest, justice, and equality”.  The Republic “is based on the eminence of the law and not the eminence of men”.  Contained within the concept of Republic are the components of democracy such as; the separation and independence of the branches of government and the existence of the Rule of Law.  Bolivia has not been a Republic since 7 February of 2009.

Parliamentary democracy is a “governmental system” in which “the election of its Government or Executive Branch comes from parliament or Legislative Branch” that is elected by the citizenry.  It has as its favorable features “the greater representation of the people” because it allows greater pluralism, “a greater response capability when confronting a governmental crisis” through its censorship vote, “greater stability with real political backing”, and offers “a greater consensus in its decisions”.  Bolivia’s municipal system has been parliamentarian since the enactment of the Popular Participation program and has worked well for over 24 years.

A Parliamentarian Republic is the state organized as a republic with a parliamentarian form of government.  It separates the roles of the “Head of the State” from those of the “Head of Government” who performs executive tasks.

Federalism is a “political system that consists of promoting from the Central Government the autonomy of the regions, departments or states, who in the aggregate make up a nation”.  A “Federal Government” is “a sole institution comprised by several decentralized institutions with executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federation and of their own; these institutions cannot leave the Federation; there are two subordinated legal frameworks and there are exclusive, shared, and concurrent competencies of the Federation and of the regions, departments or states”.  The role of international relations, education and national defense must be Federal.

Published in Spanish by Infobae.com on Sunday August 12th, 2018

Translated from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association ATA # 234680.