Bolivia: Mesa takes control
2003-10-18 10:53
La Paz, Bolivia - Bolivians traded their deeply unpopular president for his next-in-line after Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was driven from power by weeks of furious street protests that killed more than 65 people.
Vice President Carlos Mesa, 50, assumed the presidency late on Friday and quickly offered to hold early elections, calling for unity in a country deeply divided along class and social lines.
"We have to respond to one of the biggest challenges in our history. If you all can't help me there is no way we can crawl out of this," said Mesa, a former television reporter and a respected historian.
Sanchez de Lozada, 73, submitted his resignation on Friday after three weeks of deadly riots triggered by a plan to export natural gas to the United States and Mexico. The proposal had outraged many Bolivians who had grown disillusioned with his free-market economic policies.
He stepped down after he lost the support of key allies and his beleaguered government collapsed, sparking widespread street celebrations. "The people have won!" thousands of demonstrators shouted late into the night on a plaza only blocks from the presidential palace.
Mesa will face staggering challenges, inheriting the leadership of South America's poorest country at a time when the economy has idled for years. Unemployment is at 12% and most Bolivians earn around $2 a day.
Donna Lee Van Cott, an expert in Latin American politics at the University of Tennessee, said the new president might get an early boost from his status as a political independent - but that could also make it difficult to govern, since he lacks a political base.
"Mesa is an outsider, which is helpful in terms of connecting with the disaffected groups," she said. "But it will be very difficult to govern in Congress. It's going to be very difficult because of the demands of the indigenous sector. They've been deprived for so long, it may be difficult to negotiate with them."
- AP