Another progressive turns dictatorial

President Evo Morales says Bolivia's new constitution will let him seek another five-year term in 2014 - even though opposition leaders insist the document rules out re-election.

The leftist former coca-grower's union leader told a news conference late Tuesday that he outmaneuvered opponents who had tried to write language into the new constitution that would block him from extending his presidency.

. . . First elected in 2005, Morales won re-election in December under the revamped constitution approved in January 2009.

That new law allows just one re-election, and rivals say that rules him out for 2014.

But Morales said the limit doesn't apply because the vote in 2009 was his first election under the new constitution. The 2005 ballot that first brought him to the presidency doesn't count, he argued.

The dispute sets up a potential court fight.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/29/1848177/bolivias-morales-law-lets-him.html

In the 60's and 70's, the threats to South American democracy were from both the left (such as Castro) and the right (such as Pinochet).

Today, they're exclusively from the left (Chavez, Ortega, Morales, etc.).