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Bolivian president warns of snap elections

A truck burns after Bolivians tried to attack a Venezuelan person that arrived in a Venezuelan Air Force Hercules aircraft in Riberalta, Bolivia, on Thursday. Bolivians threw stones at the plane in protest against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's influence in Bolivian internal affairs, forcing the plane to take off again for the Brazilian city of Rio Branco. PHOTO: EPA

Bolivian President Evo Morales vowed on Thursday to call snap elections if he loses a proposed referendum, putting his office and that of the country's nine governors on the line in a bid to settle a constitutional reform crisis.

"If they revoke my mandate, we will call for snap general elections at once," Morales said in an interview with Telesur television.

Morales said he was about to send to Congress draft legislation on the plebiscite he first proposed on Wednesday to the country's governors, six of whom last month called their provinces on strike to protest his proposed constitutional reforms.

Morales, a leftist, populist president along the lines of his close ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is after social reforms including greater federal control of the country's revenues to redistribute wealth from the rich lowland provinces to their poorer highland neighbors.

The six governors opposed to Morales are from Bolivia's wealthiest regions and balk at the idea of having the federal government reach into their pockets.

A Constituent Assembly, packed with Morales supporters, recently approved the framework of a new Constitution -- which would also broaden Morales' powers -- that the opposition calls illegal since it was voted by simple and not by two-thirds majority.

Clashes between supporters and opponents of Morales have often been marked by violence.

Earlier this month, three anti-government protesters were killed in the city of Sucre.

In his interview, Morales said the ongoing "conspiracy against the government" was "headed by the US embassy."

To end the crisis, Morales on Wednesday suggested a referendum to see who has the support of the Bolivian people.

Presidential spokesman Alex Contreras said that for Morales or any of the nine governors to step down, the negative votes against them would have to be at least one vote higher than the number of votes they got in the 2005 elections.

In Morales' case, that would mean one vote more than the 1,544,347 votes -- or 54 percent -- his Movement To Socialism Party got in the elections, National Electoral Tribunal data indicated.

The same principle would apply to the nine governors in the proposed referendum, Contreras said.

The nation's governors have yet to respond to Morales' challenge, but those of Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija, Pando and Cochabamba have said they do not trust the president and his referendum proposal.

Opposition leaders suggested the referendum, should it be approved, would scrap the proposed Constitution, which is to be completed by next Friday, but the government said absolutely not.

"They're two completely different things," Contreras said.
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