Morales to resign after weeks of protest

• Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Sunday he would resign after the military called on him to step down and allies tumbled away amid a fierce backlash over a disputed election that has roiled the South American nation.

Morales, the country’s leader for nearly 14 years, said in televised comments that he would submit his resignation letter to help restore stability, though he aimed barbs at what he called a “civic coup.”

The head of Bolivia’s armed forces earlier on Sunday said the military had asked Morales to step down after weeks of protests over the Oct. 20 presidential election, which Morales won.

“We suggest the president of the State renounce his presidential mandate, allowing peace to be restored and the stability maintained for the good of our Bolivia,” said Gen. Williams Kaliman, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces. “Likewise, we ask the Bolivian people and mobilized sectors to shed attitudes of violence and disorder among brothers so as not to stain our families with blood, pain and mourning.”

Earlier on Sunday, Morales had agreed to hold new elections after a report from the Organization of American States ( OAS), which conducted an audit of the Oct. 20 vote, revealed serious irregularities in the election.

The OAS report said the vote should be annulled after it had found “clear manipulations” of the voting system that called into question Morales’s win, with a lead of just over 10 points over rival Carlos Mesa.

Morales, speaking at an earlier news conference, had tried to placate critics by saying he would replace the country’s electoral body for the new vote, though his opponents, already angry that he ran in defiance of term limits, were not assuaged.

Luis Fernando Camacho, a civic leader from the eastern city of Santa Cruz who has become a symbol of the opposition, said the OAS report clearly demonstrated election fraud.

“Today we won a battle,” Camacho told a crowd of cheering supporters in the capital, though he added more time was needed to repair the constitutional order and democracy. “Only when we can be sure that democracy is solid, then will we go back home.”

U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had welcomed the call for a new vote to “ensure free and fair elections.”

As the fallout from the audit report swept across Bolivia, there were signs that Morales’s support was waning fast.

Several of his allies resigned, including Mining Minister Cesar Navarro and Chamber of Deputies President Victor Borda, who belongs to Morales’s party. They both cited fear for the safety of their families as the reason for stepping down.