© Reuters. A demonstrator holds up an indication studying “Census 2023” as individuals protest towards the postponement of the 2023 inhabitants and housing census in Cochabamba, Bolivia. October 27, 2022. REUTERS/Patricia Pinto/File Photograph
LA PAZ (Reuters) – A 36-day normal strike in Bolivia’s key farming area of Santa Cruz got here to an finish on Saturday, as lawmakers authorized a assure to carry a inhabitants census in 2024, which can probably hand the area extra tax revenues and seats in Congress.
“We’re lifting the strike and the blockades,” native civic chief Romulo Calvo instructed reporters. Bolivia’s economic system ministry estimates the strike has value the nation over $1 billion.
The census legislation, which Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies handed early Saturday morning with over two-thirds of votes, has been despatched to the Senate for overview earlier than it’s enacted by President Luis Arce.
Regional leaders in soy-rich Santa Cruz mentioned they might stay on standby till the legislation is authorized.
Whereas the federal government known as for a return to normality, regional and opposition teams had mentioned La Paz’s socialist authorities was delaying the census because it might be deprived by current years of migration from rural areas to Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest metropolis.
The census, which can enable the redistribution of seats forward of the nation’s 2025 normal elections, will mark its first in additional than a decade.
Underneath the brand new legislation, the census might be held on March 23, 2024, and the outcomes might be delivered the next September, to allow them to be used to redistribute the area’s political representatives and financial allotments.
