Bolivian congress votes to extend state of emergency for 90 days

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Mike from Vancouver, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Bolivia's Congress voted Thursday to extend President Rodrigo Paz's state of emergency by 90 days, citing threats of renewed blockades, marches and strikes. The emergency, first declared in June amid the country's worst economic crisis in 40 years, has let the government deploy the military, clear roadblocks and restrict the right to demonstrate.

Interior Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo said the extension is meant to sustain economic normalization and guarantee free movement. Fuel lines still stretch for kilometers in places after Paz eliminated subsidies inherited from the previous government, and this month coca farmers and Evo Morales supporters protested a doubling of diesel prices in Cochabamba.

Bolivia has committed to eliminating all fuel subsidies starting in January under a $1.9 billion IMF bailout agreement.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Calling a 90-day extension of emergency powers a step toward normalization is a bit like telling the neighbors the flood is temporary while the water's still rising in the living room. The lines at the pump haven't gotten shorter since the subsidies came off, and doubling diesel prices while restricting the right to protest about it is a hard combination to sell as reform. The IMF check clears either way, it seems.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Meatball Parade · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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