Language

Pres. Rodríguez Veltzé Isn't Moving

Submitted October 28, 2005 - 10:33 pm by Luis Gomez
The whole mess came about this afternoon when the National Electoral Court (CNE in its Spanish initials) released a statement announcing that it was now impossible to complete its work and organize the December 4 elections.

With this declaration, which court spokesman Salvador Romero Balliván (a man close to former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga) endorsed and explained one hour ago, the CNE demonstrated that it was incapable of printing and distributing ballots (and fulfilling all of its commitments) in a period of less than forty days. Ballivián, nevertheless, left open the possibility that the process could be carried out one or two weeks after the scheduled election day (on either the 11th or 18th of December, both Sundays).

A few minutes ago, the president’s spokesman announced the government’s official position on the matter in a brief press conference. Taking into consideration the CNE’s announcement, President Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzá has “initiated an urgent evaluation” of what this implies, held meetings all afternoon with representatives of various sectors (businessmen, elected politicians, and his own government officials)… but not much more.

According to the presidential spokesman, the Bolivian president will try to meet with all the sectors involved in this conflict to “soften positions” and produce a result on Monday at the latest, “an accord to preserve de Bolivian democratic system and national unity,” the spokesman said.

As for the possibility of making a decree to redistribute Congressional seats (specifically in the Chamber of Deputies), the government spokesman explained: “At the moment we have nothing defined on that issue,” making it clear that they continue to see this method as a possible alternative.

Finally, Rodríguez Veltzé’s position is that elections “be carried out in the month of December, within the terms of the call [for elections after the May-June uprising],” looking at a new timeframe in order to move elections ahead according to the CNE announcement. He also dismissed the possibility of holding the Constituent (Constitutional) Assembly (a solution that is already being examined) before the elections.

In fewer words, kind readers, the president of Bolivia is not moving from his spot, not making any concrete action… further feeding the uncertainty.

Reply

Our Policy on Comment Submissions: Co-publishers of Narco News (which includes The Narcosphere and The Field) may post comments without moderation. All co-publishers comment under their real name, have contributed resources or volunteer labor to this project, have filled out this application and agreed to some simple guidelines about commenting.

Narco News has recently opened its comments section for submissions to moderated comments (that’s this box, here) by everybody else. More than 95 percent of all submitted comments are typically approved, because they are on-topic, coherent, don’t spread false claims or rumors, don’t gratuitously insult other commenters, and don’t engage in commerce, spam or otherwise hijack the thread. Narco News reserves the right to reject any comment for any reason, so, especially if you choose to comment anonymously, the burden is on you to make your comment interesting and relevant. That said, as you can see, hundreds of comments are approved each week here. Good luck in your comment submission!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

User login