Carnaval & Politics

02.28.2004

At first, I felt foolish that I'd missed the new Bolivian constitution. After all, it's a major part of my studies. But parliament's been debating constitutional reforms for months, w/ little progress. I didn't expect anything so significant from parliament — especially not before Carnaval. I realized there was a "new constitution" while reading the political news & analysis PULSO (website not frequenly updated). So I began asking around. Well, it seems I'm not the only one who missed this significant event.

Why? Because it happened the Thursday before Carnaval (over a week ago). La Razón still doesn't have its web archives updated to that date. Neither do most other papers. I managed to find only El Deber w/ news of the first few days of Carnaval online. Their front page cover story? The crowning of the Santa Cruz Carnaval Queen. Not the nation's new magna carta, the carnaval queen. The new constitution is filed under the "And also ..." column.

I was travelling all Thursday night & most of Friday to Tarija, so I missed the daily paper announcing the new constitution. But it was so low priority to everyone around me — who were more focused on Carnaval — that I missed it entirely. A trip to the Library of Congress is in order.

Anyone who thinks Latin Americans are more concerned about politics than apathetic Americans, take note. Annual carnaval celebrations are more important than a new constitution.

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NOTE: Bolivia's "new constitution" technically is only a series of amendments to the existing magna carta, much like the 1994 amendments termed the "1994 Constitution" by everyone. This marks the second time in Bolivian history a constitution was changed constitutionally (the first was 1994).

Posted by Miguel at 02:37 PM

Comments

Miguel, I'd like to review the Bolivian constitution (and new amendments, of poss). Any suggestions as to English-language sources?

I could try to rely on Spanish, but my native Ingles is preferred ...

Posted by: tom at February 28, 2004 05:32 PM

That information's not yet available. I'll post it as soon as it is. However, the 1994 Constitution is online.

Posted by: Miguel at February 28, 2004 05:52 PM

I rather think about Carnaval then some politicians and their new changes to a document I will get changed again anyways...

Posted by: sam at February 29, 2004 04:02 AM

I ment to say, That will get changed..., not that I plan on changing it...

Posted by: sam at February 29, 2004 04:03 AM

Well the big question is- what changes did they make? From the gringo perspective, it looks like Congress (and Mesa?) went out of their way to bury the news... what are they trying to hide?

Posted by: mike d at March 1, 2004 10:39 AM

I don't think the parliament buried the news. In part, because this is Carnaval & normal news behavior. Also, because parliament's so fragmented into different ideological parties, that at least one of them would leak anything — as frequently happens.

The major changes to the constitution are that the articles giving political parties a monopoly on representation are rescinded, giving individual citizens may more opportunities to participate in politics. This is a good thing, I believe.

I'm still looking for the actual text. Newspaper online archives are only slowly coming online for those days. Again, Carnaval trumps all other activities for about a week.

Posted by: Miguel at March 1, 2004 02:01 PM