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New Bolivia leader promises early election
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-10 19:19
SUCRE, Bolivia - Bolivia's new president pledged Friday to call early
elections and take other steps to calm a country paralyzed by weeks of
opposition protests that forced his U.S.-backed predecessor to resign.
Eduardo Rodriguez, the Supreme Court chief justice, automatically became
president after Congress accepted the resignation of former President Carlos
Mesa late Thursday and two congressional leaders first in line for the post
declined the job.
Hoping to quell the fury of tens of thousands of indigenous poor, Rodriguez
declared he would work with lawmakers on key reforms to heal growing rifts in
South America's poorest nation.
"Bolivia deserves better days," Rodriguez, 49, told lawmakers. "I'm convinced
that one of my tasks will be to begin an electoral process to renew and continue
building a democratic system that is more just."
Under Bolivia's constitution, Rodriguez must call presidential elections
within 180 days.
Evo Morales, the anti-U.S. leader of the protests, said early national
elections are key to defusing the country's political and social crisis.
Such a vote could also boost the presidential aspirations of the leftist
Indian leader, who ran unsuccessfully once before in an attempt to join some
seven leftists chosen at the ballot box in recent years across Latin America.
Morales had frequently criticized Mesa's free-market policies as not
benefitting impoverished Indians. Among others steps, he demands nationalization
of the oil industry to bring more social benefits to the poor and a
constitutional assembly to address demands for more power for Indians.
Critics have expressed concern that his reforms might only isolate Bolivia
and cause more harm than good in a country where 64 percent of the 8.5 million
population live below the poverty line.
Rodriguez was expected to open negotiations with political parties on whether
the vice president and other officials would also be replaced.
In La Paz, Bolivia's biggest city with 1 million inhabitants, protesters who
had demanded early elections danced in the streets, apparently appeased. And
Mesa, whose term was to have ended in August 2007, left the Government Palace
wishing his successor luck.
"This decision will work to bring about the pacification of the country,"
Mesa said. "I wish my successor the greatest success. Now may the country return
to normalcy."
Rodriguez said he would seek to convene a constitutional assembly to discuss
providing poor and indigenous groups more say in national politics, examine
demands to nationalize Bolivia's oil industry and study regional aspirations for
greater autonomy.
Mesa's 19-month-old U.S.-backed government crumbled in the face of a protest
movement that reverberated from the high mountain plains of La Paz to the
tropical lowlands of South America.
Activists seized several oil field installations, crippling the national
economy, while La Paz ran short on gasoline and food as the city was strangled
by road blockades and daily marches.
Rodriguez' appointment came after lawmakers citing security concerns moved
their meeting from convulsed La Paz to Sucre, 450 miles to the southeast.
After clashes in Sucre, Congress rapidly accepted Mesa's resignation Thursday
night. Then both the Senate leader Hormando Vaca Diez and House leader Mario
Cossio rejected the job, automatically giving it to the chief justice, who had
been third in line for the presidency.
Demonstrators had rejected Vaca Diez and Cossio for the job, saying they came
from discredited traditional parties that Morales called the "mafia of the
oligarchy."
Had either accepted the position, he would have been allowed by law to serve
out Mesa's term.
Rodriguez, however, is required to call early elections in which Morales is
likely to be a leading candidate.
Rodriguez, who studied public administration at Harvard in the United States,
is a respected justice who plans to return to the judiciary after his term.
The month-long unrest registered its first death Thursday when a 52-year-old
miner reportedly was killed in a clash at a police checkpoint near Sucre.
Protests subsequently erupted in Sucre with hundreds of miners and other
demonstrators clashing with riot police before Congress ultimately convened.
Earlier Thursday, the head of the armed forces, Naval Adm. Luis Aranda
Granados, warned both sides to avoid violence and find a peaceful solution,
saying the military was prepared to safeguard democracy. "As long as there is no
break in the constitutional and democratic system, we will continue to safeguard
this entire process," he said.
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