MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Controversial regional elections in Bolivia

Bolivia took another step towards a federal system government by calling the first election for governors of the Andean nation's nine provinces, which are scheduled for August 12.

Congress Speaker Hormando Vaca Diez, acting president in the absence of Carlos Mesa who is attending Pope John Paul II funeral at the Vatican, signed the bill authorizing the vote. The bill followed on a special amendment to the electoral code passed by the Senate last Thursday.

The amendment was initiated from a decree President Mesa signed last January to appease popular pressure in the prosperous eastern province of Santa Cruz where two massive popular assemblies demanded provincial autonomy.

Until now, Bolivia's provinces have been administered by prefects appointed by the central government in La Paz.

Attending the event in La Paz on Friday were the leaders of the country's main parties, including former President Jaime Paz Zamora of the Revolutionary Left Movement and Mirtha Quevedo from the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, originally the party of former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who was forced to resign following popular protests and armed repression in October 2003 opening the way for then-Vice President Carlos Mesa.

MIR, MNR and ADN a party founded by a former military dictator, later elected president, Hugo Banzer are the hardcore of the political establishment that has dominated Bolivian politics for over half a century and belong mostly to the Spanish colonizers descendents.

However today the main opposition group with a strong Indian leadership, and leading in the public opinion polls, is the Movement Towards Socialism, MAS, which fears that greater regional autonomy is yet another move by the traditional elite to keep power by weakening La Paz centralized hold on the country.

Leftists and groups alleging to represent the 62% Indian population of Bolivia also believe the latest call for regional elections is aimed at trimming down the constitutional convention promised by President Mesa with the aim of giving the indigenous peoples a bigger role in the country's political life.

However acting president Vaca Diez and other congressional leaders insisted Friday that the establishment of a federal system and a national assembly to rewrite the constitution go hand in hand.