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Bolivia's Morales pushes reforms after vote win
11 Aug 2008 23:00:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with Morales quote, U.S. and Cuban reaction)

By Simon Gardner

LA PAZ, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Confirmed in office in a landslide recall election vote, Bolivian President Evo Morales now plans to push through major constitutional reforms early next year that will further antagonize his rightist opponents.

The reforms would give more clout to Bolivia's poor indigenous majority, enable Morales to run for reelection and undermine the campaigns in opposition-led provinces for greater autonomy from central government.

But they have driven a deep wedge between Morales and the conservative governors of wealthier eastern provinces.

"We should start 2009 ... by calling a referendum on whether to approve the state's new constitution policy," Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana said on Monday.

Morales won a clear mandate in Sunday's election with more than 60 percent support but the four leading governors who oppose him and want autonomy for their provinces also comfortably survived their recall votes, and Bolivian politics remain deadlocked.

Some fear more violent protests like those that rocked the country last week.

The governors trying to block Morales' socialist reforms are furious he has cut their share of windfall natural gas revenues and accuse him of governing only for his supporters.

Quintana said voters should have the final word.

"If we can't reach substantive agreements ... then we must address all those issues which divide us to a referendum -- issues like reelection, the compatibility of autonomous governments, land issues," he said on state television.

Such a vote would be highly divisive in a Bolivia already polarized along economic and racial fault lines between Morales' Indian power base in the impoverished west of the country and resource-rich provinces in the east.

After winning Sunday's referendum with over 75 percent support according to unofficial results, Ruben Costas, governor of Santa Cruz province in Bolivia's agricultural heartland, promised his supporters regional autonomy and dismissed Morales' planned constitution.

DIALOGUE?

Morales called for dialogue with the governors, and said on Monday he would call a meeting once official results are out.

"I call on governors who may have radical messages to desist," Morales told foreign correspondents in his palace. "By taking part in the referendum, the people of Bolivia are asking us to get together."

The U.S. State Department welcomed the fact that Sunday's vote was peaceful, and urged all parties to begin "a frank dialogue to resolve outstanding issues".

Quintana said a negotiated solution would be hard to find, but Nationalization Minister Hector Arce, a top Morales aide, said dialogue was vital.

"The mandate implicit in the vote, for whoever looks at it calmly and impartially, is dialogue, consensus-seeking," he told private radio station Erbol.

"Lots of people voted for the president, but lots of people also voted (for some governors)," he added. "So people are demanding dialogue."

Bolivia's first Indian leader and a former coca leaf farmer, Morales had hoped the recall vote would undermine the governors' autonomy drives.

Partial official votes issued on Monday said Morales had 63.5 percent support with returns in from nearly 60 percent of polling stations, way above the 53.7 percent he was first elected with in December 2005.

Retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro sent his ally Morales an email that read "It has been a colossal victory".

At least 80 percent of the 4.1-million electorate apparently turned out for the obligatory vote.

While the main players in Bolivia's power struggle survived the recall votes, at least two governors were defeated.

They include Manfred Reyes Villa, the anti-Morales governor of Cochabamba in Bolivia's coca-growing heartland, but he said the vote was illegal and is refusing to step down.

"It is not my aim to lead my town of Cochabamba toward violence, but we have to respect the law," Reyes Villa told reporters as he turned up early for work on Monday.

Quintana said the government would decide on how to remove Reyes Villa from office once final official results are in. (Additional reporting by Rodrigo Martinez in Cochabamba, Eduardo Garcia and Carlos Quiroga in La Paz, and Sue Pleming in Washington; Editing by Kieran Murray)
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