Bolivian President Evo Morales is not the most popular person in the country at the moment and the latest violent protests attest that. The demonstrations come in the wake of the ruling government’s decision to rewrite the country’s Constitution and usher dramatic reforms into the State.
Protestors against the reform have threatened to close the Constituent Assembly set up by the President to structure the new framework. They want the capital of Bolivia to be relocated and their resorting to violent means to strengthen their protest have actually instilled a sense of fear inside the Assembly.
Assembly President Sylvia Lazarte called a month long break on Friday night after realizing that it’s no longer safe for the Assembly’s delegates to walk on the streets of Sucre, the town in southern Bolivia, where the members meet to discuss the new Charter.
Several older people have now taken on the protests after a group of university students first decided to make their opinions known. Last week, a number of university students persistently clashed with the police and tried to seize the historic theater where the Assemble meets to carry out its job of writing a new constitution.
According to the proposed new constitution, which has still to be ratified on any article, greater power would be granted to the country’s indigenous majority. But with the December 14 deadline to draft the Constitution rapidly drawing near and the protests getting more and more aggressive, President Morales’s Assembly are facing a race against time. The pro-constitutional reform holds a tight majority in the 255-seat Assembly.
Source:Yahoo News
Image Source:Boliviablog.net
