Latin
America:
Bolivian
Coca
Leader
and
Presidential
Contender
Evo
Morales
Visits
European
Parliament
as
Elections
Thrown
Into
Doubt
10/7/05
With Bolivian presidential elections set for December and coca grower leader Evo Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party well-placed to achieve an historic victory, legislators in the European Parliament have stepped up to ensure that it does not evaporate like a mirage from pre-election legal shenanigans. Members of the parliament's Unitary European Left bloc hosted Morales in Strasbourg, the seat of the parliament, September 29, and called for the elections to take place as scheduled. The December elections are in doubt because the country's Constitutional Court has ruled that the congress must redistribute the number of seats allocated for each of the country's regions based on 2001 census data. Congress has yet to act, but must do so by October 15. The redistribution of seats is also likely to have an impact on the presidential elections. Under Bolivian law, if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, Congress will select the president. Under the redistricting plan, more seats are likely to be allocated to areas of the county not favorable to Morales. Bolivia's caretaker President Eduardo Rodriguez threatened Monday to resign if the December 4 elections are postponed. "If the Electoral Court decides it's impossible to hold the elections next December, I will immediately return to my office as president of the Supreme Court," he said in a surprise weekend address. Rodriguez arrived at the presidency in June in a deal cut after two presidents in two years were driven out of office by popular protests. If the elections are postponed, said Rodriguez, "the constitution's mandate, the people's trust, and my designation would not be fulfilled." European parliamentarians are also turning up the heat on Bolivia. "The popular will for having elections in Bolivia in December 2005 can not be broken with pseudo-legal maneuvers. It is the hour of democracy and change in Bolivia, and we support them," said Spanish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Willy Meyer, a member of the leftist bloc. "I will not take a step back in defense of democracy and in the search for change so that the majority of Bolivians can participate in politics and benefit from the natural resources of the country," said Morales in Strasbourg, alluding to the raging controversies over Bolivian natural gas supplies. "If Bolivians could have control over our natural resources, professionals would not be obligated to migrate to Europe to wash dishes," he said. Morales rose to prominence as a leader of embattled Bolivian coca growers and has helped meld the often disputatious growers into a strong force for political change within a larger movement of workers and peasants. In the last presidential elections, Morales came within a hair's breadth of winning.
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