The legislative branch consists of a national Congress of two houses--a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The Senate is composed of sixteen members, two from each department, who are elected by direct popular vote for a period of six years. The Chamber of Deputies is composed of seventy members, who are elected for a period of four years. Congress meets annually and its sessions are for sixty days, which may be extended to ninety days. All male citizens twenty-one years of age or over, who can read and write and have a fixed independent income, may vote. The number of citizens who vote, therefore, is very small, and the country is for that reason under the control of a political oligarchy.
The judiciary consists of a national supreme court, eight superior district courts, and many lower district courts. The supreme court is composed of seven justices, elected by the Chamber of Deputies.
In each department or State a prefect appointed by the president has supreme power. The government of these departments rests with the national congress.
The military forces of Bolivia include about 3,000 regulars and an enrolled force of 80,000 men. This enrolled force, however, is both unorganized and unarmed. In 1894 a conscription law was passed providing for compulsory military service for all males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years, with two years’ actual service in the regulars for those between twenty-one and twenty-five. This law is practically a dead letter. There is a military school with sixty cadets and an arsenal at the city of La Paz. Naturally Bolivia, having no coast line, is not provided with a navy.
Bolivia has a free and compulsory school system, but education has made little progress there. Very few of the people can read and write. Spanish is the official language, but Quichua (kee-choo´-ah or kee´-chwah). Aymará (i-mah-rah´), and Guarani (gwah-rah´-nee) are the languages of the natives, who form a majority of the population. A great part of the Indians do not understand Spanish at all and will not learn it. The school enrollment is about one in forty-four. There are universities at Sucre, La Paz, Cochabamba, Tarija (tah-ree´-hah), Potosí (po-to-see´), Santa Cruz (san´-tah kroos), and Oruro. The university at Sucre, which dates from colonial times, and that of La Paz, are the only ones well enough equipped to merit the title.