The former vice president of Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera, assured that the victory of the Rejection in the Exit Plebiscite was predictable, pointing to an error in the strategy to explain the changes. “The novelty is how he dealt with all of this and I think the way out of dealing with it in a mannered way was a mistake,” he emphasized.
The former vice president of Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera, lamented the failure of the constituent process, assuring that “it was a mistake” to face it “with good manners”.
This was stated in a conference he gave within the framework of the seminar organized by the University Academy of Christian Humanism, entitled “Neoliberalism and Human Rights: Debates from Latin American critical theory.”
On the occasion, the Bolivian politician gave a conference entitled “Time suspended: interregnum and decline of the economic cycle of global accumulation”, according to what is published The Mercury.
On the occasion, Linera was consulted for his impressions after the overwhelming triumph of the Rejection in the Exit Plebiscite, last September.
García Linera and triumph of Rejection: “It was predictable”
In this regard, the former vice president analyzed what happened, acknowledging that he was “sad”, although he recognized that it was “predictable”.
“I am a little sad with what has happened here, but you know what? It was predictable and that’s what makes me even sadder.”
“They haven’t faced things here that haven’t happened on the continent, nothing new and so there was a chance to come back. I am not one of those who have a reading that the media were the evil ones, they always are.
“It is not new that there has been a campaign to demonize the constituent,” he added.
“So, that the constituent process has faced a very adverse media environment, full of insults, lies, falsehoods that has poisoned the debate, that is common to the constituent processes of the continent, it is not new,” he insisted.
“The novelty is how he dealt with all this and I think the way out of dealing with it in a mannered way, was a mistake.”
Former Vice President García Linera: “You cannot legalistically defend a text that is political”
In that sense, he argued that “you cannot legalistically defend a text that is political. The Constitution is a political text, it says Political Constitution of the State for a reason, it is a correlation of forces. What has normative effects over time? Of course, but it is a political treaty that will define the normative forms in which they will be applied in the next 20 or 50 years”.
Although he emphasized that “no one can copy the experience of another, nor should anyone say what to do,” he pointed to the strategy used in Bolivia to achieve the approval of the Constitution.
“In our case, what did we do with the Constitution? We knew that the Constitution is a political fact, it must be dealt with politically. Second algorithm, the fate of a government is played out in the Constitution,” he explained.
“We noticed those two algorithms and said ‘well, how do we do it to defend the Constitution? Well, let’s show what the Constitution is going to do’, and what is it going to do? We nationalized gas, we nationalized telecommunications”, he insisted.
Former Bolivian vice president defended plurinationality
Likewise, García Linera referred to one of the most novel aspects of the Bolivian Constitution and that he tried to replicate in the new Magna Carta in Chile: the multinationality.
“What is multinationality? You indigenous, I semi-white, we can sit down to eat at the same table, and you have as much right to be a senator as I do, and your language and your dress are the same for any public office and for any social right”.
Due to the above, he said that “we have to have that ability to explain a text, in our case of 450 articles, things that reach people, their hearts and their pockets. That is the best way we did to approve our Constitution”.
“If you achieve a Constitution, when society is in a state of boiling, in a state of fire, the mold that you have assembled will be more favorable in unfavorable moments. And I think we have lost that. And now recovering that is going to be more complicated; so, that’s what makes me sad, ”she closed.