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