Bolivian President Evo Morales on Saturday said there would be no “political negotiation” following the country’s presidential election, whose disputed results have triggered violent protests across the country.
Morales was declared the outright winner of the vote on Sunday last week, after a sudden change in the ballot count extended his margin of victory over challenger former Bolivian president Carlos Mesa beyond the 10 percentage points needed to avoid a runoff.
Mesa, who is backed by a collective of centrist and right-wing parties, on Saturday said that he “rejected and ignored the closure of the national count of the general elections ... because it is the result of fraud and a breach of the popular will.”
Morales shot back later in the day.
“I want to tell you: Here there is no political negotiation. Here the constitution is respected, as is the party that won the last national election. I want the Bolivian right wing to know that,” the leftist leader said during a speech in Cochabamba in central Bolivia.
With all the votes counted, the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal gave Morales 47.08 percent and Mesa 36.5 percent.
The poll triggered a week of violent protests, as rival supporters clashed with security forces and each other in La Paz and elsewhere.
Mesa has called on his supporters to maintain street protests. Thousands of demonstrators blocked streets in major cities around the country on Saturday, erecting barricades and waving the red, yellow and green Bolivian flag.
The EU, US, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia have called for a runoff to restore trust and confidence in the electoral process.
Following the international outcry, Morales suggested that the Washington-based Organization of American States conduct an audit, to which its secretary-general Luis Almagro agreed.
“We have heard the position of the foreign ministries of #Colombia, #Argentina, #Brazil and the #US,” Morales tweeted. “I invite those and other countries to participate in the audit we have proposed.”
The organizaion had already expressed “surprise” and “concern” over the sudden shift in favor of Morales.
NASA on Monday successfully flew its mini helicopter Ingenuity on Mars, the first powered flight on another planet and a feat the agency said was “our Wright brothers moment.” The 1.8kg rotorcraft lifted off at 7:34am GMT, rose to 3m, swiveled its tissue-box-sized body, swayed in a gentle Martian breeze and then touched down after 39.1 seconds. Data and images from the flight were transmitted 278 million kilometers to Earth, where they were received by NASA’s array of ground antennas and processed almost three-and-a-half hours later. Engineers in orange polo shirts were glued to their screens at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California,
Furthering the growing interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs), or what the US government refers to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), the US Department of Defense on Thursday confirmed that photos and videos of UFOs leaked in the past few months were legitimate and taken by US Navy personnel. Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough confirmed to CNN that images and footage of a blinking triangular object in the sky, along with other aerial phenomena that were categorized as a “sphere,” “acorn” and “metallic blimp,” were taken by navy personnel in 2019. Gough told CNN that the department would not comment further on the
DRAWING DISMAY: Giving a forum to the coup leaders at the 10-country bloc’s talks in Jakarta this weekend would legitimize their rule, democracy advocates said Burmese Army Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is to join a special ASEAN summit on the weekend in his first official trip since masterminding a coup which deposed Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday. The Feb. 1 coup triggered a massive uprising in Myanmar, bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets to demand a return to democracy, while civil servants have boycotted work in a bid to shutter the junta’s administration. The Burmese military junta has deployed lethal force to quell the anti-coup movement, killing more than 720 people and
AMID NEGOTIATIONS: Tehran for the first time confirmed that there was an explosion at its main nuclear facility on April 11, but denied that it was caused by a cyberattack Iran on Saturday named a suspect in the April 11 attack on its Natanz nuclear facility that damaged centrifuges, saying that he had fled the country “hours before” the sabotage happened. While the extent of the damage from the sabotage remains unclear, it comes as Iran tries to negotiate with world powers over allowing the US to re-enter its tattered nuclear deal and lift the economic sanctions it faces. Already, Iran has begun enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity in response — three times higher than ever before — although in small quantities. The sabotage and Iran’s response have further inflamed
RSS