New Bolivian Parliament building with indigenous details to leave colonialist era behind

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The new building of the Legislative Assembly of Bolivia, which has one of the largest parliamentary chambers in Latin America, will become an “icon” of a new era in which the 36 indigenous peoples of the country will be represented and which puts an end to a colonialist and “discriminatory” stage, according to the ruling party.

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Freddy Mamani Laura, told Efe agency that the new building to be inaugurated August 2 marks a new “era” that leaves behind the “discriminatory Republic” of Bolivia and opens the way to the representation of the “Plurinational State”.

“What we want to show the whole world is that there is no longer only one nation in Bolivia, as we used to be called Republic of Bolivia (…). Now the Plurinational State represents absolutely all the nationalities that coexist in this land,” said Mamani.

That is why a part of this construction has the shape of a “cube” of 36 meters representing each indigenous people recognized by Bolivia. Its interior has details and representations of wood characteristics of these populations.

This building that began construction in 2015 in an area of 44,000 square meters has 25 floors, five are below ground, the infrastructure is anti-seismic, and there are symbols of the different indigenous peoples in the different environments.

“We are proud to have transitioned from a colonial, republican State to a Plurinational State, the colonial is going to remain in history, and this (infrastructure) will be to project us forward, to go with a horizon of continuing to build,” Mamani expressed.

The Bolivian deputy pointed out that the new parliamentary chamber will be “the second largest in Latin America” -the largest is in Brazil- and that it is also one of the most modern in which all the committees of senators and deputies will be “centralized” to “improve the attention” to the Bolivian population.

A NEW VISION

The Bolivian Legislative Assembly will change its working space after more than a hundred years in which the Legislative Palace next to the new one was used.

Mamani said that according to this change, the parliamentarians must also “generate a new vision in these spaces” to legislate “listening to the people and with the people”, which is the “challenge”.

“This infrastructure, these spaces, have to inspire us towards the construction of that new society, of those new bills in favor of the population,” Mamani said.

In 2018, the so-called Casa Grande del Pueblo, Bolivia’s government building, which also has indigenous details, was inaugurated.

On Thursday, Bolivian parliamentarians took a last photograph in the old chambers and went to the new facilities to begin their move.

An inauguration ceremony is expected to be held this Monday with President Luis Arce, and the Bolivian president is expected to give his speech on August 6, the country’s national holiday, in the new building.