In Bolivia, power continues to seek refuge in the symbols of the past. The official narrative insists on an unchanging history, on a closed ethnic identity, on a concept of nation more rooted in myth than in citizenship. However, today, when the world is being redefined at every moment, that vision encloses rather than liberates. Bolivia must take a step forward: leave the past behind and open up to the world, with a vision that combines individual freedom, pluralism, and modernity.
The Plurinational State project, originally conceived as a symbolic and historical reparation, has degenerated into an ethnocentric structure that reduces the citizen to an imposed collective identity. What should have been a celebration of cultural diversity has ended up becoming a system of sealed compartments from which privileges, power quotas, and political loyalties are distributed.
This model has not only fragmented the notion of a common citizenship, but has also legitimized authoritarian practices under the guise of “intercultural democracy.” In the name of indigeneity, universal principles such as due process, freedom of expression, or equality before the law are relativized. Meanwhile, certain elites manipulate communities to consolidate caudillo-style power, both locally and nationally.
This is not about denying cultural plurality, but about overcoming its political instrumentalization. Bolivia needs to rebuild its social contract on a universal foundation: respect for individual rights, the rule of law, an open economy with clear rules, and a representative democracy free from identity essentialism.
This does not mean rejecting indigeneity, but integrating it into a common project that is respectful but not exclusionary, free and not essentialist. Centrist liberalism represents that middle path: it respects differences without turning them into boundaries, defends the market without disregarding the public sphere, and prioritizes freedom over ideological labels.
Citizenship in the 21st century cannot be based on ethnic origin, but on equality before the law and the responsible exercise of individual freedom. Access to justice, political representation, or public services should not depend on one’s surname or mother tongue, but on one’s status as a citizen.
Opening up to the world is not surrendering to the foreign, but engaging in dialogue with it, learning from its successes and failures, and participating in its networks of knowledge, innovation, and progress. Modernity does not destroy roots; it liberates them from ideological instrumentalization.
The true pending revolution in Bolivia is neither symbolic nor merely institutional: it is constitutional. The model of the Plurinational State has degenerated into a rigid, ethnocentric structure that serves authoritarianism. It is no longer enough to reform secondary laws or “correct excesses.” A new Constitution is needed, one that rebuilds the country’s foundational pact based on full citizenship, political pluralism, and democratic modernity.
A new Magna Carta must recognize diversity without turning it into a hierarchy, must protect collective rights without annulling individual freedoms, and must definitively abandon the political use of identity as a tool of social control. A Constitution grounded in political coexistence, republicanism, inclusiveness, and openness to the world: that is the fundamental reform Bolivia needs to stop spinning in circles and truly begin to move forward.
