Bolivian President Evo Morales committed himself and Bolivia's nine governors on Monday to face recall votes on Aug. 10, gambling that his unfinished term would survive a referendum whose peculiar rules tilt in the populist leader’s favor.
“Personally I have no fear of the people,” Morales said. “Let the people judge us.”
Morales originally proposed the recall vote in December amid a fierce battle over his proposed draft constitution that would increase the political power of Bolivia’s long-oppressed indigenous majority. Bolivia’s lower house of Congress approved it.
But the idea went nowhere until last week, when it was revived by the opposition-controlled Senate.
The president’s opponents figured Morales had been weakened by the landslide victory of the autonomy measure in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest and richest state. But they rushed the recall referendum through without considering the fine print — which clearly gives Morales the upper hand.
The referendum requires removal from office if the officials get more “no” votes than the votes they won when they were elected in 2005. The percentage of “no” votes also must top the candidates’ previous winning percentage.
Morales won the presidency with 53.7 percent of the vote, a historic mandate in a country where presidents sometimes take office with half as much support.
If 54 percent vote against him in August — and the “no” votes top the 1.5 million ballots he won in 2005 — he would be forced to call for a new presidential election.
If either “no” count falls short — for example, if 1.6 million Bolivians vote against Morales but turnout is high enough to keep their votes below 53.7 percent — he would remain in office.
Bolivia’s governors, however, all won office with less than 50 percent of the vote — setting a much lower bar for their “no” votes.
The opposition governor of La Paz state, Jose Luis Paredes, won the pro-Morales stronghold with only 38 percent in 2005. If 39 percent of the state votes against him in the recall, he would be removed from office — even if 61 percent vote to keep him.
Should Morales lose, he must call a new presidential election to be held between three and six months.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS