Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Bolivian President Evo Morales Is Facing Anger From His Base

Bolivia's President Evo Morales speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia, February 24, 2016. Bolivian Presidency/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

Reuters: In Bolivia's bellwether city, anger at Morales grows

EL ALTO, Bolivia (Reuters) - In El Alto, a former shantytown high in the Andes that has mushroomed into Bolivia’s second-largest city, students and professors are growing disenchanted with Evo Morales, the leftist president their protests helped put in power a decade ago.

A sprawling settlement of nearly 1 million people on Bolivia’s dusty Altiplano plateau, El Alto is a larger and more politically radical extension of the capital La Paz, which sits hundreds of meters below in a canyon.

An uprising here in 2003 over the use of revenues from the poor South American nation’s natural gas reserves helped force the resignation of U.S.-backed President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Some 60 residents were killed in the upheaval.

The protests were led in part from the campus of El Alto’s public university UPEA and opened the way for Morales to take power as Bolivia’s first indigenous president three years later.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: He has been in power for 11 years .... people want a change. The problem (from their perspective) is that he does not want to go.

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