Bolivia's Government

Modern Government

Bolivia is a Republic country, but President Evo Morales supports his political party M.A.S., which stands for Movement Toward Socialism. Their legal system is modeled after Spanish Law and the Napoleonic Code.

Historic Government

After José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar gained independence for their country in 1824, Bolivar made a constitution for their new republic government. Hugo Bánzer was the president in August 1997 where he made a democratic government and made great progress in wiping out coca production. Bolivia had a conservative government in 1947 for a brief period of time. It was once again a democratic country in 1982 when Siles Zuazo became president.

The President

Evo Morales is the current president of Bolivia who was elected president in 2005. He had been against suppressing coca production and was involved in politics since before he was president, making a national political party that was a leftist Movement Toward Socialism. During his presidency he has been doing what he could to ease the lives of the indigenous people and support them, especially because he is a member of the Aymara indigenous group.

Issues

There are always very many different political parties in Bolivia at a time, so there is always competition and struggles between political parties. A recent issue is that Bolivia has found a new resource of oil, and some have been fighting against the government selling it to western companies during 2003. In 2005 there have been new laws that Bolivian officials are trying to implement that entails higher taxes on the oil and gas firms. There is also great poverty in Bolivia, and the citizens aren't unaware of the rights they have, they just aren't knowledgeable about the political arena and what they could do to fight for their rights or for/ oppose governmental policies that could impact their lives.

My Opinion

I think I would not like to live in such a country with such an unorganized political mess. Things aren't so different from here in the U.S., though, especially with how uninformed citizens are about politics and policies that really matter and all that goes on in the government. It would be too much work to move to live in Bolivia anyway, so I am fine in America.