Defying an opposition boycott, Bolivia's constitutional assembly approved a new charter yesterday that would empower the poor South American nation's indigenous majority and let President Evo Morales run for reelection indefinitely.
The new constitution must now be approved by Bolivians in a national referendum. No date has been set for the vote, and it is not expected to be held until September next year.
Opposition leaders vowed to launch protests and legal challenges against the new document, which they say does not represent all Bolivians.
"This is an authoritarian project that only seeks to perpetuate Morales in power," said Reynaldo Bayard, president of the Civic Committee of Tarija, a state where many leaders oppose Morales.
But supporters say the charter is needed to give Bolivia's indigenous peoples -- some 62 percent of the population -- greater autonomy and control over their traditional lands, redressing what Morales calls centuries of discrimination by a corrupt political class dominated by a European-descended elite.
The constitution's approval, 16 months after the popularly elected assembly first convened, was celebrated with fireworks and music by supporters in this pro-Morales stronghold high in the Andes.
Morales called the approval a source of "great happiness for the indigenous and popular movement" that "consecrates a peaceful transition."
Opposition to the new charter is stiff in the country's low-lying and more-prosperous eastern states. Bolivia has been wracked by violent protests against the new constitution in recent weeks, with three people killed in rioting and various hunger strikes launched.
Bolivian Assembly Vice President Roberto Aguilar said one article failed to garner a two-thirds majority in the body and will have to be approved directly by Bolivian voters. The measure, which would limit the size of individual land holdings to 10,000 hectares, has been bitterly opposed by the country's agribusiness.
Leaders in the eastern states of Santa Cruz and Tarija announced they would defy the charter and challenge its legality, and opposition officials in six of Bolivia's nine departments planned to meet soon to coordinate resistance.
The new constitution would permit the indefinite reelection of Bolivia's president -- something Venezuelan voters denied their socialist president, Hugo Chavez, in a referendum last week.
Chavez is a close ally and backer of Morales, and opponents of Bolivia's first indigenous president have accused him not just of following the political playbook of the leader of oil-wealthy Venezuela but also of ceding sovereignty to him.
Mindful of the accusations, Morales reiterated yesterday that no foreign military would be permitted to establish bases in Bolivia.
Morales also reminded his countryman of his plan, proposed last Wednesday, to place himself at voters' mercy in a recall election in which he could be unseated if "no" votes were to exceed the number by which he won office in December 2005, when he garnered 54 percent of the ballots.
Under the proposal, voters would also decide whether to recall Bolivia's nine state governors, six of whom are bitter opponents of Morales.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS