La Paz - The government and opposition agreed to hold a
nationwide referendum Sunday on the new draft constitution proposed
by the president, after he agreed to term limits, a senior official
said.
Rural Development Minister Carlos Romero said on Monday the
agreement moves up the next general election by one year, to January
2009, which President Evo Morales would contest for his second and
final term.
'We have worked day and night to reach an accord,' Romero said.
'President Morales even had to renounce the possibility of a second
re-election after the constitution is approved.'
The draft charter enshrines many of the president's reforms that
favour the indigenous majority and allow state control over key
sectors of the economy, which have angered wealthy mestizos to the
point of violent clashes last month that took 19 lives.
Morales, a former coca farmer who became the country's first
ethnically indigenous president, has polarized the country by trying
to spread the wealth from the resource-rich eastern plains to the
poor western Andean region.
After a court struck down his call for a December referendum,
saying only the congress had to power to convoke one, Morales led a
demonstration of 50,000 indigenous peasants and leftist activists
into the capital to pressure the congressional opposition.
Fearing further violence, opposition leaders agreed to the
plebiscite, after first extracting a pledge from Morales that he
would not seek re-election in 2014, if he wins a second term.
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