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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Churches Oppose President in Bolivia Referendum |
| 2009-01-23 |
| SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA -- A television ad that has aired around the country opens with a photo of Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales dressed in the garb of a traditional shaman. An image of Jesus Christ arrives to knock Mr. Morales off the screen, and a document labeled "New Constitution" appears amid flames. "Choose God. Vote No," the ad advises. The ad, funded by an evangelical church based in this stronghold of the political opposition, points up how religion is playing a growing role in the latest chapter of Bolivia's sometimes bloody fight over a new constitution, which is up for a national referendum on Sunday. The religious fight marks a deepening of the country's political split under Mr. Morales, an Aymara Indian who leads the ruling party, the Movement to Socialism. The conflict has pitted poor, heavily indigenous western areas where Mr. Morales is revered against whites and mixed-race mestizos in the natural gas-rich tropical lowlands. More than a dozen people died in clashes last year related to the constitutional text. If approved, Bolvia's constitution would allow Mr. Morales, elected in 2005, to seek a second consecutive five-year term, reshape congress, and extend the state's power -- marking a victory for the strongly anti-American leader who recently expelled the U.S. ambassador, nationalized the country's energy supplies, and whose key patron is Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Pachamamma and the effect of La Nina. Thank God for Wikipedia. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2009-01-23 02:04 |