PRES. MORALES ON HUNGER STRIKE

[magbana]

Bolivian President on Hunger Strike

La Paz, Apr 9 (Prensa Latina) Bolivian President Evo Morales declared
Monday he is on a hunger strike with leaders of social organizations
as a protest of obstacles in Congress to the approval of a temporary
electoral law.

In a message to the people from Quemado Palace, Morales reported that
it is a decision for an indefinite period, until the Parliament
pronounces in favor of the regulation.

He also said Bolivian Workers' Union (COB) top leader Pedro Montes
and that of the National Coordinator's Office for the Change
(CONALCAM), among others, joined the strike.

The president said the strike is intended to defend the people's
sacred right to vote and mandate, expressed on January 25, when the
majority approved the State's political Constitution.

Morales recalled that the Constitution granted a 60-day period to
Congress to approve a law about a temporary electoral system, faced
with the general elections on December 6 and those regional in April,
2010.

Faced with some neoliberal parliamentary groups negligence, we are
forced to adopt this position of pressure, he remarked.

In his opinion, the legislators' strategy, especially in the
opposition-majority Senate, is to hinder implementation of the
Supreme Law and the general elections, in which they know they will
be defeated.

He also lashed the questioning by some parliamentarians opposed to
the change, of the voting by Bolivian residents abroad.

In this respect, he recalled that dozens of immigrants that live in
Argentina also started a hunger strike in 2008 in front of the
parliament buildings, demanding the essential right to vote.

Morales condemned the decision to reduce the seats of the indigenous
and original people and farmers in the future Plurinational
Legislative Assembly (name to be adopted by Congress in 2010).

Using the excuse of population density, they (opposition senators) do
not want a single indigenous person in Parliament, he warned.

Another demand by the legislators opposed to Morales' administration
is to hold another voter census, something that in the opinion of
National Electoral Court experts would delay the process until
January, 2010.

The demand is another pretext to hinder those elections, according to
the Executive.

COB leader Pedro Montes announced that all workers from the South
American nation declared themselves in an emergency also, and urged
the parliamentarians to do their duty to their country. On the
contrary, they would be responsible for new further measures of
pressure.
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