LA PAZ, Nov 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Bolivia’s interim president said she will call new elections soon, as the country struggles with violent
unrest a week after the resignation of Evo Morales.
“Very soon we will announce news regarding our main mandate: calling
transparent elections,” Jeanine Anez said in a speech at the presidential
palace.
She did not give details, saying only that the announcement will seek the
“recovery of our country’s democratic credibility.”
Unrest in Bolivia first erupted after Morales — the country’s first
indigenous president — was accused of rigging the results of the Oct 20
polls to gain re-election.
He resigned Sunday Nov 10 and fled to Mexico after losing the support of the security forces.
Anez, the 52-year-old former deputy speaker of the Senate, declared herself
the country’s interim president on Tuesday, filling a vacuum left by Morales’ departure and the resignations of several ministers.
The government also said that violent demonstrations roiling the
country were slowing. However, rural groups close to Morales demanded Anez’s resignation.
The number of trouble spots is “down by half,” interim Interior Minister
Arturo Murillo said.
The violence has claimed at least 23 lives and left scores injured since
late October, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The protests that forced Morales to seek asylum in Mexico have continued,
primarily around the central city of Cochabamba, where violent clashes
erupted Friday between coca growers and both army troops and police.
Nine people died, the IACHR reported, though the government has recognized only five of them.
Murillo angered opposition groups by suggesting that the coca growers might even have shot some of their own supporters to generate sympathy.
From Mexico, Morales lashed out at the killings, tweeting that “these
crimes against humanity … must not go unpunished.”
The IACHR decried as “grave” a decree from the Anez government exempting the armed forces from criminal responsibility as they preserve public order.
The rights group, an autonomous arm of the Organization of American States, said the effect of the decree could be to “stimulate violent repression.”
Presidential minister Jerjes Justiniano insisted the decree did not give
troops “a license to kill” but merely provided constitutional underpinning
for their efforts to keep the peace.
Though demonstrations were generally waning on Sunday, protesters blockaded a highway from El Alto, about 10 kilometers from Bolivia’s
administrative capital, raising the specter of fuel shortages.
The Senkata refinery in El Alto furnishes the La Paz region with gasoline
and natural gas.
Food shortages are being reported in many regions.
The interim government sent a plane with 35 tons of meat to La Paz and
promised to provide 25 tons of chicken, Justiniano said.
But pressure on the government remains high, and six coca-growers’ unions in Chapare, a Morales stronghold, late Saturday demanded Anez’s resignation “within 48 hours” and fresh elections within 90 days. — NNN-AGENCIES
