Bolivia Has A New President

His name is Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze, he has been a judge in the supreme court, and he appears, at this stage at least, as an interim, compromise candidate:

The action came after lawmakers gathered following a day of demonstrations and under a warning by the military of possible intervention if the spreading chaos isn’t quelled.

Congress rapidly accepted the resignation of President Carlos Mesa. Then both the Senate and House leaders rejected the job, automatically giving it to Supreme Court Justice Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze, who had been third in the line for the presidency.

“Bolivia deserves better days,” Rodriguez told lawmakers after swearing in. “I’m convinced that one of my tasks will be to begin an electoral process to renew and continue building a democratic system that is more just.”

Publius Pundit has another good Bolivian blogs roundup. In particular Mabb has a good on the spot account of the tension involved.

Interestingly enough Miguel at Ciao and Eduardo Barrio Flores are arguing that opposition leader Evo Morales should resign too, in order to reduce the dangers of this conflict exploding.

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About Edward Hugh

Edward 'the bonobo is a Catalan economist of British extraction. After being born, brought-up and educated in the United Kingdom, Edward subsequently settled in Barcelona where he has now lived for over 15 years. As a consequence Edward considers himself to be "Catalan by adoption". He has also to some extent been "adopted by Catalonia", since throughout the current economic crisis he has been a constant voice on TV, radio and in the press arguing in favor of the need for some kind of internal devaluation if Spain wants to stay inside the Euro. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".