Political Constitution: A Criticized Document | Constitución Política, documento criticado

Editorial, El Diario:

Criticism of the current Political Constitution of the Plurinational State has existed for several years and has recently been renewed because President Rodrigo Paz has announced that it will be partially amended. First, this Constitution is illegitimate, since it was not approved by the Constituent Assembly but by an extra-constituent body, the ordinary Congress. Second, it is an idealistic document because it was drafted without taking into account the country’s reality. Its main features are open to question.

In this regard, Article One—which guides the rest of the Constitution—eliminates the existence of Bolivia as a Nation and defines it as a Plurinational Communitarian Rule-of-Law State, thereby establishing that it exists only as a Plurinational State. The same article provides that, beginning in 2009, Bolivian society is founded on pluralism, that is, in politics, the economy, justice, culture, and so on. For example, several economic systems coexist, such as feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. All of them operate simultaneously. Under this pluralism, justice is communitarian and socialist and is applied freely.

In short, everything is plural, or composed of many forms. This diversity must be observed by all Bolivian citizens. But there are other pluralistic aspects as well. Indeed, this Constitution provides that Bolivia is no longer moving toward the future but toward the past. It states that the country must return to the communitarian system of thousands of years ago in order to establish socialism without passing through the capitalist stage. For that reason, Evo Morales’s party is called the Movement Toward Socialism, which governed for twenty years, up to the administration of Luis Arce.

This Constitution also establishes the election of magistrates by popular vote, an obsolete system rejected around the world, whose implementation proved to be a failure. It is intended to allow the Executive Branch to control the judiciary and eliminates the separation of powers, as occurred during two decades of MAS rule.

Likewise, it is a discriminatory and racist Constitution. For example, it prohibits peasant owners of smallholdings from selling their land, while allowing medium and large landowners to buy and sell property, that is, to enjoy land income and property rights. This same provision is racist; in theory it says one thing, while in practice it does another.

Furthermore, this Constitution verbally recognizes land ownership for peasants with small plots, but then prohibits them from selling those plots, which amounts to stripping them of both property rights and the land itself (in order to establish socialism). After all, if a person cannot sell his land, he is not its owner.

It is discriminatory because, in urban areas, landowners may do whatever they wish with their property, whereas peasants may not do the same. What is alarming is that these measures were imposed by the “indigenous” Evo Morales against his own people. For these reasons, among others, the current Constitution should be replaced by one that reflects the reality of Bolivia.

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