Elected Sergio Choque, from MAS, president of the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia

Contramaestre, Nov. 14.- Sergio Choque, leader of the majority of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), was elected early this Thursday as president of the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia, a country in political crisis after the coup d’état against former president Evo Morales, according to telesur.

Choque reported that a consensus was reached between the MAS parliamentary faction and Congresswoman Inés López, of the Democratic Unity (UD) coalition, to win the support of the plenary to assume the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies for this legislative period.

In his first statements as head of the lower house, Choque asked “the mobilized sectors to appease us (…) we can no longer face each other.

He criticized the police repression against the supporters of former president Evo Morales, who is in exile in Mexico.

He advanced that he will introduce in the House a bill to withdraw the Army to its barracks.

Choque denounced that ” the fundamental rights are being violated, the right to free expression, to life and education, rights that have been violated by this coup in complicity with the Police and the Armed Forces.”

In the October 20 elections, the MAS, led by Morales, obtained more than two-thirds of the votes in the two chambers of Bolivia’s Plurinational Assembly (parliament).

Morales, who won the presidency for a fourth term, was forced to resign last Sunday after violent protests and the “suggestion” by both the police and the armed forces to resign.

(With information from telesur)

Written by Radio Grito de Baire