Andean Group - 8 March 2005

As we went to press, President Carlos Mesa was waiting on congress to decide whether to accept his letter of resignation. Mesa offered to step down in a broadcast to the nation on 6 March, 17 months after he took up the position. Early on 7 March thousands gathered in the Plaza Murillo in La Paz, outside the government buildings. The overwhelming majority demonstrated in favour of Mesa staying on. An extraordinary session of congress was called for 8 March.

Mesa said that he was offering his resignation because he was fed up with the apparently endless protests against his government. He reserved most of his vitriol for Evo Morales, the leader of the second biggest party in congress, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). Mesa said that Morales was shirking his responsibilities by constantly carping from the opposition benches, and destabilising Bolivia's fragile democracy by fomenting protest actions. He specifically mentioned Morales's decision on 4 March to call for a nationwide series of roadblocks and protests and the decision by leftwingers in El Alto, a sprawling suburb of La Paz, to step up their protests to get rid of the foreign-owned water and sewage company, Aguas de Illimani. 

Mesa said that Morales and his supporters wanted two things: a constituent assembly to reform the country's constitution and a reform of the hydrocarbons law. The president added that he was in favour of both of these things but that they could only be decided upon by congress. Any other course would be undemocratic, he said. 

Mesa said that, unlike his predecessor, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who sent in troops to break up similar nationwide protests in October 2003, he was not going to use force to break the roadblocks (Sánchez Lozada's decision caused over 60 deaths and forced him into exile). However, it is Mesa's continued refusal to take this step which has preserved his moral stature: it is for this reason that his threat to resign is his strongest card, eliciting a display of popular support that congress is unlikely to be able to ignore. Many of those demonstrating outside the presidential palace on 7 March actually called for Mesa to take a tougher line with the protesters. Surprisingly, Mesa's announcement even triggered a large demonstration in his favour in Cochabamba, Morales's stronghold.

Should congress accept Mesa's letter of resignation the president of the senate, Hormando Vaca Diez, a member of the Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) would be the next in line. However the early indications were that congress would urge Mesa to stay on. Guido Añez, head of the MIR, said on 7 March that the MIR was "not interested in the constitutional succession," preferring instead to see Mesa complete his mandate.