Bolivia Leaders Debate the Fate of the President

President Carlos Mesa formally submitted his resignation to Congress on Monday but continued to rule Bolivia as political leaders debated his future and how he might still be able to restore order in this troubled Andean country.

Under the Bolivian Constitution, Congress must approve the president’s resignation. By Monday evening, after a day of private caucuses among the country’s political parties, a number of top leaders said they would vote to keep Mesa in office.

In a surprise speech late Sunday, Mesa announced he had no alternative but to resign in the face of demonstrations this week by peasant and Indian leaders aimed at shutting down many of the country’s largest cities.

“They had decided to take over government offices, to invade the airport [that serves the capital], to take over oil wells and shut down pipelines,” Jose Galindo, minister of the presidency, said Monday. “We can’t continue to follow this mad logic of the tribe ... which is eating up the state one bite at a time.”

Galindo made it clear that Mesa would remain in office if Congress backed him. Congress was scheduled to meet today to begin deciding Mesa’s fate.

The president’s supporters, many from Bolivia’s small but influential middle class, took to the streets in several cities Monday to demand that he remain in office. Leaders of the armed forces and the police also said they wanted him to stay.

“We ask the population to defend the rule of law,” said Luis Alberto Aranda, head of Bolivia’s armed forces. “The armed forces are with this democracy.”

The 51-year-old former historian remains popular for his efforts to avoid the type of bloody confrontations that have colored Bolivia’s recent history. But some say he is weak and has allowed his government to become hostage to the nation’s most radical leaders.

Elected vice president in 2002, Mesa became Bolivia’s head of state in October 2003 after dozens of people were killed in protests against President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a center-right businessman. Sanchez de Lozada fled to the United States.

On Monday, Bolivia’s political leaders had varying reactions to Mesa’s speech, which criticized the many civic and political leaders of widely varying ideologies and goals who have brought his government to its knees.

Evo Morales of the leftist Movement to Socialism, the largest opposition party in Congress, called the speech an attempt to blackmail the people. But some members of Morales’ party said they would vote to keep Mesa in office.

“Mesa has to be part of the solution and not part of the problem,” said Gustavo Torrico, a congressman with the Movement to Socialism.

Mirtha Quevedo, leader of the conservative National Revolutionary Movement, said Mesa’s blaming of others was yet another example of his nonexistent leadership.

“It’s irresponsible,” she said. “The problem is we haven’t had a government, or a president. We can’t continue this way.”

But the leaders of at least two other major center-right parties said they would vote to keep the president in office.

Mesa said stepping down might be the only way to bring an end to the continuous protests staged not only by members of the country’s restive indigenous majority, but also by business leaders seeking greater regional autonomy for eastern Bolivia.

The president also reiterated his resistance to ordering soldiers and police to use force to clear the country of barricades and protesters.

“Don’t worry, because there will be no dead Bolivians on my watch,” Mesa said in his speech, directly addressing the demonstrators with thinly veiled sarcasm. “I am a man of my word.... Go ahead and block the roads all you like.”

Less than two hours after Sunday’s speech, Mesa appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace in La Paz to greet the throng of supporters who had gathered to chant, “You are not alone!” and “Don’t surrender!”

“I am sure that we will be able to build a country for everyone,” Mesa told the crowd, calling them “a silent vote that is now being heard.”

Some political leaders said Monday that the only way out of the crisis was to call early elections or establish a national unity government.

If Congress votes to keep Mesa in office, “we all go back to square one and don’t solve anything,” said Jorge Lazarte, a political scientist in the capital. “Mesa has to assume responsibility for his decisions.”

If Mesa’s resignation is accepted, the head of the Senate, Hormando Vaca Diez, will become president.

The latest political crisis was set off by unrelated protests by separate groups: the mostly Aymara Indian leadership of El Alto, a suburb of La Paz, and peasants allied with Morales’ Movement to Socialism.

Special correspondent Oscar Ordonez contributed to this report.