Bolivia 2018
Yearbook 2018
Bolivia. After five years of investigations, a ruling came in the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) on October 1, which meant a severe defeat for Bolivia in the country’s quest to gain access to the Pacific Ocean by leaving Chile part of its territory. The conflict between the two countries dates back to the Pacific War 1879–83 when Chile occupied Bolivia’s coastal strip, and over the years has been loaded with nationalist sentiments on both sides. The Court’s ruling was not about Bolivia’s right as such but about Chile’s obligation to negotiate the case, which the Court rejected. According to Countryaah.com, Sucre is the capital city of Bolivia, a country located in South America. Chile’s president Sebastián Piñera saw the outcome as a victory but at the same time declared himself willing to talk, while Bolivia’s president Evo Morales insisted on moving on.
- According to Abbreviationfinder: BOL is an three letter acronym for Bolivia.
The biggest defeat for Morales, who put much of his personal prestige into the matter, was on the domestic political plane and related to his plans to be re-elected in 2019. Opinion polls showed a declining support for him and his party MAS (the Movement for Socialism). In September, only 29% of those surveyed said they would vote for him, which is comparable to the 61% of the votes he got in the 2016 election.
At the end of August, the government-controlled Congress approved a new electoral law stipulating that all parties must elect their president and vice presidential candidates through primary elections and that the funding of party activities should be made more transparent. The opposition, with former president Carlos Mesa (2003–05) at the forefront, argued that the law was an invention of MAS to secure Morale’s victory in 2019.
Morales also ended up in conflict with his own political base, the coca farmers, where he has his political origin. In late August, Franklin Gutiérrez, leader of a cocoa growers organization, was arrested and in May he announced his plans for his own political project ahead of the 2019 elections. The arrest was triggered by violent unrest in a village near the capital La Paz, which had its roots partly in competition between cocoa growers in different regions, especially Yungas and Chapare where Morales has its roots, and partly in their overall opposition to the government’s measures against illegal cocoa cultivation. A UN study published in August showed that in 2017, coca cultivation in Bolivia increased by 1,400 hectares.
Sucre
Sucre, (after AJ de Sucre), city of southern Bolivia; 194,000 residents (2001). Sucre is the official capital of Bolivia, though almost all of the capital’s functions have been transferred to La Paz, located 400 km towards NV; only the supreme court of the country is in Sucre. The city is 2800 meters above sea level in the Central Cordillas and has a pleasant climate.
Sucre is an important educational city and has many colonial churches; together with the well-preserved center, it makes the city, also known as the “White City”, one of the most beautiful in the country.
History
The town was founded in 1538 and was known in the following centuries as both Chuquisaca, Charcas and La Plata; its present name was given it in 1826 by the establishment of the Chuquisaca department.
The city became the seat of the colonial administration in Upper Peru (Bolivia) in 1559 and the archbishop’s seat in 1609; the University of 1624 was a center of philosophical thinking in Latin America in the late 1700’s.
In 1809 a revolutionary government junta was formed in the city. However, the rebellion against Spain’s colonial rule, one of the first in Latin America, was quickly defeated. Sucre became capital in 1839; the Liberals’ attempts to let La Paz take over the role triggered in the 1898 civil war, and since then Sucre’s status as capital has been more formal than real.
