Maria Lorena Leiva Salinas 2. Historical Background Bolivia has currently gone through 18 political constitutions. Over the renditions, it has evolved in many areas, such as fiscal control and the delegation of powers, amongst others, yet in relation to nationality and the acquisition and/or loss of citizenship not many advances have been made. The first Bolivian Constitution, adopted in 1826 – one year after the founding of the Republic – included a series of legal precepts coming from modern contractarianism that were adopted from foreign constitutional texts and mechanically incorporated into Bolivia’s Magna Carta. Hence the 1826 constitution was strongly influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution and the North American Declaration of Independence, in which the inalienable rights of man were universally proclaimed. In this way, the first constitution proclaimed Bolivia a Popular Representative Republic, and established that sovereignty resided with the people. At the time, however, large social majorities were excluded from the constitutional norm, and isolated from national political life. These groups were not considered citizens of the new state as they did not comply with the minimum constitutional requirements, such as those of an economic nature, of gender, and of literacy in Spanish. At the time of its foundation, Bolivia had an Aymara and Quechua-speaking indigenous population of approximately 800,000 people, the number of the so-called whites or ‘criollos’ reached 200,000, and those typified as mestizos or ‘chollos’ amounted to 100,0003. The electoral body was composed of a small elite of one ‘practicing citizens’ per one hundred inhabitants. The electoral body met every year in provincial capitals in order to, amongst other things, prevent the inclusion of new citizens into active practice, exclude the ‘undesired’ ones, and choose and propose lists for the hierarchical positions. One of the critical issues regarding citizenship that the first Bolivian constitutions dragged well into the nineteenth century was the difference that was established between ‘Bolivians’ and ‘citizens’. Bolivians were considered to be those born on the territory, to a Bolivian mother or father who had fought for freedom in the battles of Junín and Ayacucho; while being a citizen required being Bolivian, married or over 20 years of age, knowing how to read and write, having employment, industry or professing some science or art, but without being subjected to another in domestic servitude. While all Bolivians enjoyed the civil rights granted to citizens, they were deprived of the exercise of elections, of obtaining jobs in the State and of acceding to public office. These first constitutional versions did not speak of rights as such, but of guarantees, ensuring all Bolivians civil liberty, individual security, property, equality before the law, freedom of expression, of mobilisation, and inviolability of residence and correspondence. Finally, freedom of labour was established, and slavery abolished, together with hereditary jobs and privileges. On their part, Bolivians had the duty to submit to the Constitution and to laws, respect and obey authorities, contribute to public expenditures, sacrifice their property and their life “if the Republic so required”, and safeguard public liberties. An article of the Bolivian Constitution stipulates that citizenship would be suspended, among other things, for “being a Chile, 2013. Miradas al nuevo texto constitucional (varios autores), Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Idea-Internacional, La Paz 2010 3 Herbert Pentlnad en Klein. Origenes de la Revolución Nacional Boliviana. La Paz:Ed. Juventud, s.f. 2 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/2 - © 2020 Author