Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada the patriotic statesman contributes with Bolivia’s “Constitution for Everyone”

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 09/07/2023

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Former President of the Republic of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (AKA Goni) has proposed to the Bolivian people “A CONSTITUTION FOR EVERYONE,” an undertaking to “guarantee the primacy of freedom and equality” and “to avert the fight for power to occur at the fringes of democracy and its institutions.” This is a generous initiative to return the institutionality to Bolivia and reflects the author’s humanistic education, great political experience, and the statesman’s gesture that increase his legacy for the Bolivian peoples.

Goni is a philosopher educated at the University of Chicago, a movie’s screen player, entrepreneur, and businessman with great success in the mining industry. He was a Congressional Representative and Senator in Bolivia’s Congress and was selected as a Minister of President Victor Paz Estenssoro to end -starting in 1985- the runaway hyperinflation of over 20,000% that had taken Bolivia to military dictatorships and a left-leaning populism. A “new economic policy” was established that gave the country stability and growth while democracy lasted, something that was interrupted with the coup d’état of 17 October of 2003 that prevented him to complete his second term and led him to exile.

He won the elections in 1989 but lost the presidency due to fraud committed by a politicized electoral institution whose majority -the so-called “gang of four”- publicly tampered with the results. The constitutional resources that should have prevented such crime to occur were never used by a Supreme Court of Justice that was also manipulated. He was left with a solid parliamentarian block and dedicated the next four years to explore and prepare institutional improvements. As a member of the opposition, he was able to make electoral courts impartial and had legislation passed -by consensus- for needed reforms to the Constitution.

Goni again won the elections of 1993 and this time was sworn-in as President. During the time he was in the opposition, between 1989 and 1993, he directed and funded task forces comprised by national and foreign experts and a plurality of representation, specially one for constitutional reforms This is where the content was birthed and was integrated as a constitutional reform, he promulgated in 1994. This reform only left unincluded the proposal for parliamentarism that had been extensively researched and was ready to be implemented but was halted due to the distrust of political allies and the Executive’s forbearance which in historical hindsight was a big mistake. Parliamentarism was instituted in the municipal system, but the national system remained presidentialism.

Sanchez de Lozada’s government from 1993 to 1997 was extraordinary due to; the consensual reform of Bolivia’s Constitution, the needed identification and implementation of State’s policies regarding the economy, the fight against narcotics, the protection of the environment, and approval of a social welfare programs with a monthly stipend known as Bonosol, the popular participation, the establishment of a Regulatory System, the existence of the Rule of Law, the promotion and push for education, the law of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA in Spanish) that set aside the greatest national parks, the fight against discrimination, the de-centralization, and the unity in diversity.

Goni won the elections of 2002 but received a country with an institutional crisis, with a loss of authority, with an economic crisis, and destabilized. Beyond all of that, he had to conform a vast coalition and organize a weak government. Internationally, the silent advance of Bolivarian populism -known today as 21st Century Socialism or Castrochavism- was well underway. There was an attempt on his life in February of 2003 and was feloniously toppled in October of 2003. Afterwards the Republic of Bolivia was supplanted through counterfeiting and crime that gave way to the Constitution for the Plurinational State of Bolivia, a statute of the dictatorship that today divides and oppresses Bolivian peoples.

This brief framework is indispensable to be able to understand the proposed “CONSTITUTION FOR EVERYONE.” Sanchez de Lozada is a scholar, a serious leader, referred to as “the expert of experts,” who seeks help and directs those who know and from whom he seeks the best results. This is what he now has done with the Kozolchyk National Law Center. He was always like this. He proposes and he also contradicts himself, he accepts ideas, and gets to conclusions to then dismantle them to start again in a philosophical practice of Hegelian dialectics and Aristotelic syllogistic.

A proposal is a project, an idea, a concept, a plan put forth for discussion and analysis. The brilliance of Goni’s proposal is that without even mentioning the word “dictatorship” he proposes a remedy for the concentration of power, the deinstitutionalization, the violation of human rights and freedom, the absence of the rule of law, the existence of fraudulent elections, the disappearance of universal suffrage concepts, the taking over of power by organized crime, and more. This is why we see the fury of the dictatorship and its functional opposition in their response and their insistent denial to even consider a proposal based on freedom and equality that Bolivian peoples seek in their diversity that is their wealth.

This proposal is something that is not in the best interest of neither those who wield power in the dictatorship, nor its allies who are part of the functional opposition, because it exposes their involvement in the commission of crime and forebodes the end of their spoils. The proposal is for the peoples because they demand it. It is a good proposal, not complete nor perfect, as acknowledged by its author. It is the flame of freedom well raised and formulated.

Parliamentarism is, without any doubt, a necessity and is well raised and designed for the Bolivian idiosyncrasy. It is my opinion that beyond parliamentarism, the federalization of Bolivia is indispensable. Having Bolivia as a parliamentary and federal State would complete Goni’s work. That is a matter of essence and there are many of detail but the “CONSTITUTION FOR EVERYONE” is a flame of hope -lit by a patriotic statesman- that no one will be able to turn-off.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».