La Nueva Constitucion (Bolivia, 2009)
Bolivians voted in the Evo Morales new Constitution project with a 60% majority, during the referendum held on January, 29th, 2009. The constitution is designed to “improve the status of indigenous communities, to bring social justice and increase the role of the State”. The text intents to redefine the country as a multiracial welfare-state made up of many social and ethnic communities. There are plans to carry out a land reform, decriminalize the production of coca leaves, and extend social rights. The State’s new constitutional body of law could profoundly change the country its actual implementation will prove to be a difficult task. These radical changes are not well looked upon by everyone in Bolivia: the five, right-wing autonomist regions – which are the motors of economic growth – rejected the project of reform.
