Why Bolivia has two capitals

The old capital

Sucre was founded by the Spanish in 1538 as La Plata, and in 1559 it became the seat of the Audiencia of Charcas, the highest court of a colonial region stretching from Lake Titicaca to what is now Paraguay and Argentina.^[4][5] On 25 May 1809, when the audiencia’s president jailed a lawyer who favoured independence, the city rose in one of the first revolts against Spanish rule in South America.^[4]

Bolivia’s independence came in 1825, and the events leading up to it took place in the city’s Casa de la Libertad.^[4][5] In 1839 the city was declared the capital and renamed Sucre, after Antonio José de Sucre, the general whose army had freed it and the country’s first president.^[5][4]

The Federal War

In 1898 Sucre’s delegates to Congress forced through a law that made their city the permanent seat of government and required the president to stay there, the so-called ley de radicatoria.^[3][2]

The La Paz delegates walked out, and a junta in La Paz declared for federalism. Its army, led by the Liberal José Manuel Pando, allied with Aymara communities under Pablo Zárate Willka.^[3][2] In April 1899 Pando defeated the Conservative president, Severo Fernández Alonso, at the battle of the Segundo Crucero near Oruro, and Alonso resigned.^[2]

The Liberals took power, and La Paz became the seat of government in fact. The Liberals ruled for twenty years, and the government never went back.^[2][3] Sucre kept its title and the Supreme Court.^[4]

Capital on paper

The split isn’t in the constitution. The 2009 Constitution says simply, in Article 6, “Sucre es la Capital de Bolivia”, Sucre is the capital of Bolivia. It doesn’t mention La Paz as the seat of government.^[1]

Sucre tried to get the rest back while that constitution was being drafted. In 2007 groups in the city demanded that it be restored as Bolivia’s full capital, the capitalía plena. The constituent assembly, which was meeting in Sucre, was suspended in September 2007 as the dispute grew.^[6]

When the assembly tried to reconvene in mid-November, the city’s people kept a vigil outside to force the issue, and the sessions were moved to a military college outside town.^[7] In the clashes that followed, three people were killed, allegedly by the security forces.^[8] The assembly moved again, to Oruro, where the governing party’s delegates, with the main opposition parties boycotting, approved the draft on 8 December 2007.^[7] Sucre’s status stayed as it was.^[7][1]