LA PAZ, BOLIVIA — In a rare instance of political accord, President Evo Morales and his critics have agreed to support a recall election for Morales and all eight sitting state governors.
The referendum, scheduled for Aug. 10, will mark the third national vote in less than three years in this deeply divided Andean nation of 9 million.
Morales and his opponents, including some of the governors, are gambling that the vote will bloody their respective foes. But few experts view the election as likely to oust the leftist Morales, a vocal U.S. critic, or temper the country's political polarization.
"The referendum won't provide an exit from the crisis," Juan Antonio de Chazal, a political analyst, told the La Paz daily La Razon. "It's more like a taking stock of forces to see who has more legitimacy."
Said Morales: "Personally I don't fear the people. . . . Let the people judge elected officials."
Morales and his opponents both see potential benefits in the balloting, which was approved by Congress last week and Morales on Monday.
The president, almost halfway through his five-year term, is looking for a new majority to reinvigorate his leadership. Conservative critics envision a chance to weaken his mandate.
From Morales' perspective, the recall vote could be a double-plus: He could emerge stronger while several opposition governors, including those in La Paz and Cochabamba provinces, which include the capital and a second major city, might be voted out of office.
Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, retains deep support within his base, dispossessed highland Indians, poor urban dwellers and cultivators of the coca leaf, the raw ingredient in cocaine. The president rose to political prominence as a U.S.-bashing point man for the country's cocaleros, or coca growers.
"Evo's doing well," said Pedro Pablo Mamami, a doorman in La Paz, the capital. "All the previous governments were thieves."
In recent days, the president's backers have staged huge pro-government rallies in response to an explicitly anti-Morales autonomy movement that seeks to curb executive power.
The autonomy push is sweeping Bolivia's relatively prosperous lowlands, where Morales is often unpopular. This month, an autonomy measure that would dilute federal sway over taxes, natural resources and other matters was approved in the eastern province of Santa Cruz, the nation's largest and richest state.
