Rigoberta Menchu warns that oligarchy threats Morales’ term of office

Menchu warns that oligarchy threats Morales’ term of office La Paz, August 08 (ABI).- This Friday, Rigoberta Menchu, Novel Peace Price 1992 and Guatemalan indigenous leader, through a letter warns that Bolivian Oligarchy at all costs seeks to finish with President Evo Morales’ term of office. "I believe that never before like now Bolivian oligarchy groups want, at all costs, to remove a government that have emerged from the deepest aspirations of people", says the letter sent by Menchu to president Morales, offering all her support to his Administration. Menchu gives this warning after that Percy Fernandez, Mayor of Santa Cruz city called the Bolivian Army to lead a coup d’etat against Morales’ Administration. During the last hours and being close the repeal referendum day, the opposing groups became more violent, besieging public entities, airports in some cities and even shooting the car of Juan Ramon Quintana, minister of the Presidency in Trinidad, Beni. Despite that fact, the Guatemalan indigenous leader says to be convinced that Bolivian people would let truth and justice prevail at the repeal referendum, to be held on next Sunday, August 10. Pta/ ABI Translation: Sonia Prado

Bolivia's President, Evo Morales, and eight of the country's elected regional governors, some of whom are his fiercest political enemies, are about to put their mandates on the line. On Sunday, Bolivians will vote in a recall referendum that will decide whether Mr Morales and the governors should stay in office. But the referendum has already been shrouded in confusion over what percentage of the votes the governors need to survive in office, which could mean the results are contested. There is also considerable doubt whether the referendum will help to reduce the acute social and geographical polarisation in Bolivia and make the country more governable. Last May, President Morales agreed to the recall referendum in part because he believed he could use it to regain the political momentum against his opponents in the gas-rich eastern departments.