Bolivian president quits

Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, holding a Bolivian flag, is greeted by supporters as he leaves Monday the government house in La Paz after resignation. Mesa resigned amid angry street protests demanding nationalisation of the country's natural gas sector. PHOTO: AFP

"It is my responsibility to say that this is as far as I can go," Mesa said on national television late Monday.

"For that reason my decision is to offer my resignation from my post as president of the republic," which he took over 20 months ago after his predecessor, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, was driven from office, also by demonstrations over control of Bolivia's gas reserves.

Mesa, visibly upset during his 25-minute speech, asked demonstrators to allow Congress to debate his successor.

"The solution to our problems must be based on the interests of all," he said.

Congress President Hormando Vaca Diaz called for a meeting Tuesday to elect Mesa's successor, according to the constitution. Diaz is next in the line of succession, followed by the president of the House of Deputies, Mario Cossio, and Supreme Court President Eduardo Rodriguez, who has the only legal right to call for new elections.

Hours before his announcement, Mesa was forced to flee his office as protesters threatened to overwhelm police guarding the Quemado presidential palace.

An estimated 80,000 people, including Quechua and Aymara Indians, farmers, miners and unionists surrounded the presidential palace and the nearby Congress on the capital's main square, chanting "Civil war!" and hurling blasting caps, to demand the nationalisation of the natural gas industry.

Opposition leaders, however, were sceptical of Mesa's announcement, recalling that on March 7 he also tended his resignation only to have Congress reject it a few hours later.

Socialist opposition leader Evo Morales, who heads the country's coca growers' union and was behind the current anti-government protests, said Mesa's resignation was "only half believable since at no time did he mention it was irrevocable."

"To make us believe," Morales added, the presidents of both houses of Congress, Vaca Diaz and Cossio, should also resign "and the Supreme Court president should assume the presidency and call for presidential elections before the end of the year."

Hours before his announcement, Mesa was forced to flee his office as protesters threatened to overwhelm police guarding the Quemado presidential palace.

An estimated 80,000 people, including Quechua and Aymara Indians, farmers, miners and unionists surrounded the presidential palace and the nearby Congress on the capital's main square, chanting "Civil war!" and hurling blasting caps, to demand the nationalisation of the natural gas industry.