Civic Groups Threaten Bolivia Of National Strike Over Date Of Upcoming Census

Clashes between the government and protestors who want the national census done in 2023 instead of 2024 continue to intensify Thursday, as the protesting groups threaten a national strike if the government refuses to carry out the census next year.

Road blockades have been put around the city of Santa Cruz as more and more people come together to ask the government to do the census in 2023 instead of 2024. Protestors in more regional areas have found themselves throwing fireworks at police as they retaliate by putting tear gas to the protestors, according to Reuters.

The census has become a flash point for the country after the administration of President Luis Arce moved it from November of this year to 2024 due to “technical and logistical problems,” World Politics Review reported.

Many are decrying the move as an attempt to sabotage the “congressional representation and allocation of government funding” of many districts not aligned with the President, saying that the census being done in 2024 would not give it enough time for the data to be applied for the 2025 elections.

Santa Cruz governor Luis Fernando Camacho has led the charge regarding the protests against the census delay. He has reportedly mobilized a national backlash against the census delay that includes the support of labor unions and the halting of the country’s major exports in protest.

A group of civic committees from across the cities in the country are also threatening a massive national strike unless the government changes its mind about the date of the census, while also saying that they want an end to what they are calling the “siege of Santa Cruz.” “If there is no solution to this problem, the civic movement will start a national strike on Monday,” Bolivian Civic Movement member Roxana Graz said.

Arce’s administration is reportedly looking into the census date through a national technical committee, though he himself has blamed the protestors for the delay in dialogue regarding the date as well as the violence happening in the city. “Today Bolivia is once again threatened by those who, incapable of contributing to democracy, bet on confrontation and violence, endangering democratic coexistence among Bolivians,” Arce said.