Country In Brief
Bolivia has achieved 20 years of uninterrupted democracy. However, it is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, and there is widespread social misery among its population, two-thirds of whom are indigenous. In recent years, the country’s economic woes have shaped its political scene, as two presidents have been forced to resign by vocal street protests in as many years.
Central to the political conflict are the status of the country’s natural gas reserves and the representativeness of the political system. In 2005, then-President Carlos Mesa promised to increase taxes on foreign energy companies and convene a Constituent Assembly to review the Constitution in order to make Bolivia’s political system more inclusive, transparent, participatory and less vulnerable to corruption. Evo Morales, elected in December 2005 as Bolivia’s first indigenous president, has pledged to pursue both of these issues.