Bolivian President Evo Morales agreed on Monday to seek only one more five-year term, a key concession that all but ended a standoff in Congress over a new constitution to empower the nation’s long oppressed indigenous majority.
The agreement, announced by Vice President Alvaro Garcia, came as more than 100,000 of Morales’ supporters packed the streets of the capital to root for the new charter.
The proposed constitution has been widely celebrated by the president’s poorer, largely Indian supporters but has met fierce resistance from the middle and upper classes in the lowland east, who say it overlooks their demands for greater regional autonomy.
PHOTO: AP
Lawmakers continued to debate eastern autonomy, long the thorniest issue of the new constitution, as they convened behind closed doors on Monday night to fine-tune the charter’s details before calling for a national referendum.
They agreed to meet after Garcia announced that Morales had pledged to “only participate in one re-election, for the 2009-2014 term.”
The president, meanwhile, appeared before thousands of supporters packed shoulder-to-shoulder in a plaza outside Congress to announce that the constitutional referendum would be held on Jan. 25.
Nationwide elections — for president, vice president and a Congress that will be reorganized by the new constitution — will follow on Dec. 6 next year, he said.
Morales did not appear to dampen his supporters’ enthusiasm with his re-election concession and he grinned widely as a small sea of hard-hatted miners, packed in too tight to dance, bobbed in place to the music of a traditional Andean folk group.
Morales’ proposed new charter would allow him to serve two consecutive five-year terms. He had planned to start counting the terms only after a victory in general elections next year, to be held if voters approve the constitution.
Critics had charged that the leftist leader — Bolivia’s sixth president since 2000 — aimed to vastly extend his stay in power. But Morales’ concession meets conservative opposition demands that his current term, begun in 2006, should count against the total, limiting his possible rule to 2014 instead of 2019.
Under current law, Bolivia’s presidents can only serve two, nonconsecutive five-year terms.
Morales, a veteran street protester, rose before dawn on Monday to join hordes of flag-waving miners, petroleum workers and peasant farmers from across the country in the final stretch of a weeklong, 200km march across Bolivia’s chilly high plains.
His supporters “only want the constitution to be put before the people, so the people can say yes or no,” Morales said as he marched in black sneakers and a traditional red woolen poncho. “It’s the most democratic way.”
Morales drew 67 percent support in an August recall vote and his new constitution is expected to pass easily. But the president’s narrow majority in Congress is not enough to call the constitutional referendum, which requires a two-thirds vote.
The new constitution’s lengthy bill of rights includes a long section dedicated to indigenous groups and would grant them autonomy over their traditional lands and a “priority” share of the country’s natural resources wealth.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS