Bolivian leader offers to resign, citing protests

BOGOTA -- Fed up with months of protests over natural gas and water that have gridlocked the government and could paralyze Bolivia's economy, President Carlos Mesa submitted his resignation to Congress yesterday, leaving legislators to decide who should lead a polarized country that has worn down two presidents in less than two years.

In an emotional speech Sunday night expressing frustration over roadblocks and strikes that could threaten the supply of food and fuel, Mesa said he could no longer preside over "the irresponsible comedy of destroying Bolivia."

He blamed an indigenous politician and leftist community organizers for launching 820 protests during his 17 months as president -- an average of two confrontations a day -- which have made the poorest country in South America virtually ungovernable.

Congress is expected to meet today, and analysts say Mesa is gambling that legislators -- faced with no one better to do the job -- will reject his resignation, conferring a vote of confidence that might silence his opponents long enough to find consensus. If Congress accepts Mesa's resignation, it would be the second time in two years that a Bolivian president has resigned in the face of crippling protests by indigenous leaders who want a greater share of national resources and power.

Yesterday, thousands of Mesa's supporters filled the square in front of the presidential palace in La Paz. Meanwhile, in El Alto, a poor, largely indigenous city outside the capital, protesters who want water and sewage service nationalized clashed with scores of Mesa loyalists. Protesters in El Alto have threatened to cut off the water supply and block the international airport.

Mesa's resignation "is a tactical game," said Carlos Toranzo, a researcher at Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Sociales.

"The president has spent 17 months with Congress, indigenous groups, and local associations against him, while [indigenous leader] Evo Morales tries to destabilize the government. You can't govern like that. If Congress rejects his resignation, that will at least open a space for a peaceful political pact, and everyone will have to get on board for the diffi- cult reforms that are needed."

Mesa, a former journalist who came to power as the independent running mate of former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, declared himself a "transitional president" when he was tapped to replace Sanchez de Lozada. Mesa has no political party and scant backing in Congress, but national polls he cited Sunday night give him 60 percent public support.

Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian political scientist at Florida International University in Miami, said Mesa is "tired and frustrated, and doesn't want to use the armed force or police [to quell protests].

So how do you bring Evo [Morales] and others down?" Morales, a populist, indigenous coca grower who leads the secondlargest party in Congress, called for renewed strikes last week to protest the government's new law on hydrocarbons. According to Apoyo, a Peruvian firm that polls in Bolivia, 15 percent of the public supports Morales. Washington opposed the 2002 bid by Morales for the presidency because of his opposition to the eradication of coca, the raw material for cocaine.

In an interview with CNN en Espanol on Sunday night, Morales called Mesa's threat to resign "blackmail" and accused him of "showing his true colors" as a racist and an oligarch. Bolivia has the greatest proportion of indigenous people of any South American country, and race is a major card in national and local politics.

The contentious issue that divides Mesa and Morales is a debate over the profits from foreign companies' $3 billion investment in Bolivia's natural gas sector, South America's second-largest supply. A number of foreign firms, including American oil giant ExxonMobil, British firm Amoco, French firm Elf, and Brazilian state-owned Petrobras have investments in Bolivian gas.

Under a hydrocarbons law supported by Mesa that passed last week by one vote in the lower house, the government's share of gas revenues would rise from 18 percent to 50 percent, including all royalties and taxes paid by the foreign firms. But Morales and his Movement to Socialism party want the firms to pay 50 percent in royalties alone, plus taxes, and are demanding the new contracts take effect immediately -- a step the foreign firms say amounts to forced nationalization.

Other recent protests have been over the French-owned water and sewage company in El Alto.

Local protesters say the company's $400 fee for new water connections is too high in a country where the average per capita income is just twice that amount.

Two months ago, after intense strikes by the local neighborhood association, the government canceled the French contract. But instead of nationalizing the service, Mesa proposed a joint venture, saying municipal authorities are incapable of providing the service alone, and the government cannot afford a $50 million indemnity to pay off the French Suez Group for seizing its assets.

Toranzo said the only solution is a consensus among political actors to reform the hydrocarbon industry without chasing away foreign investment; to reform the electoral system to promote regional autonomy; and to convene a constitutional assembly for other needed reforms. "Only the president can achieve this," he said.

But Roberto Laserna, a Bolivian political analyst in the central city of Cochabama, called Mesa's threat to resign irresponsible, accusing him of "playing games in order to remain in power. The question is not just to keep power, but to exercise it . . . in defense of the poorest citizens, whose jobs and daily lives are in greater risk because . . . of the absence of political direction in the government."