Bolivian president Morales admits social reforms are hamstrung by old laws

Bolivia’s Evo Morales was recently elected by a populace hungry for new opportunity and an end to foreign multi-nationals laying claim to both Bolivia’s resources and Bolivia’s profits. Since becoming president he really wants to help the disadvantaged portions of Bolivian society.

He feels he’s been made a prisoner, though. Old laws are tripping up the political process.

“You want to issue a decree to help the poor, the indigenous people, the popular movements, the workers… but there’s another law. Another padlock.” he says of the process. “It’s full of padlocks that mean you can’t transform things from the palace... I feel like a prisoner of the neo-liberal laws.”

He’s got other problems brewing as well. Bolivia’s invaluable gas fields lie in a part of the country coincidentaly overrun with right-wing Christian political parties, groups which seem hell-bent on making things difficult for Morales’ fledgeling government.

They want autonomy. They want all but 10% of the gas profits. And they’re happy with the multi-national grip on Bolivia’s resources.

Right now there’s talk of paramilitaries and weapons stockpiles. What lies ahead for Bolivia?

Shortly before 0500, the military police huddled in the doorways of the Plaza Murillo begin to stir beneath their capes.

The door of the presidential palace creaks open and the guards, in scarlet tunics and white webbing, begin a rigmarole of shuffling, stamping and saluting that is the changing of the guard.

The police are muscular white guys. The guards, armed with muskets, are willowy young indigenous kids – the regiment has always recruited from the “indios” for ethnic novelty value.

Now, as the police strut away, the guards smile nervously at each other from beneath their kepis: then they collapse in a fit of giggles.

Since Evo Morales took office, the joke is no longer on them. “Look,” President Morales tells me, “60 years ago, our grandparents didn’t even have the right to walk into the main square – not even in the gutter. And then we got into parliament – and now we’re here.”

He looks around apologetically at the long Rococco state room we are meeting in – at the ormolu chairs we are sitting on. He has installed a portrait of Che Guevara in the presidential suite but, apart from that, the palace remains as it…

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