http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/2009414133825634593.html
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
17:22 Mecca time, 14:22 GMT
Morales ends hunger strike
Morales and supporters spend days sleeping
on mattresses in the presidential palace [EPA]
Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, has ended his five-day hunger strike
after Bolivia's congress approved a new election law.
The law permits Morales to stand again for election on December 6,
reserves 14 congressional seats for indigenous candidates and permits
expatriates to vote.
The Bolivian president spent several nights on a mattress on the floor of
Bolivia's presidential palace, surrounded by banners and supporters and chewing
coca leaves to ward off hunger after beginning the strike.
Recent polls suggest that Morales, the Andean nation's first indigenous
president and a critic of the United States who has yet to announce his
candidacy, will most likely win re-election.
Vote concerns
Morales has championed the rights of Bolivia's
indigenous peoples since entering office [AFP]
Morales's Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS party, had enough votes to
ratify the bill in the lower house and senate, but the opposition had refused
to grant the quorum needed for a vote.
MAS controls the lower chamber, but opposition parties have used their
slim majority in the senate to block dozens of government-proposed reforms.
Morales's opponents said the law would give him political advantage
because it assigns more seats to the poor, indigenous parts of the country
whose rights he has championed since he took office in 2006.
However, a deal was reached after Morales ordered officials to compile a
new electoral register, following opposition leaders' claims that he could
exploit "flaws" in the existing census to rig the vote.
'Racist' opposition
Morales had earlier condemned the opposition for being "racist, fascist,
selfish" in refusing to ratify the law.
He also said that he had received supportive phone calls from Hugo
Chavez, the Venezuela president, and Fidel Castro, the former president of Cuba.
Morales, a former coca farmer, has said he once went without food for 18
days in 1998 to protest against the then-government's policy on coca, the raw
material for cocaine revered by Bolivian Indians for its medicinal and
nutritional properties, Reuters reported.
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