CUBA, Jan 22, 2010. - "For our Homeland and for the Bolivian people I take an oath as President of the Pluri-National State of Bolivia”. These were the words with which Evo Morales began his second term of office on Friday, as constitutional president of his country. From the hands of Alvaro García, at the head office of the Pluri-national Legislative Assembly, Morales received the Medal of the Presidency and the Presidential Sash, two symbols recently designed and adopted by that organ in this first session. Fifty years ago, indigenous people and farmers didn’t have the right of filling positions in Bolivia; today, we’re present not only at the National Congress but also at the Palace of Government, which now belongs to the Bolivian people, recalled the head of state at the beginning of his speech right after the investiture. While presenting his report of his first presidential period before the legislative body, he made a review of the measures and actions for social benefit implemented during his first four years of administration from Quemado Palace. Also during the ceremony, sociologist and mathematician Alvaro Garcia assumed the country’s vice-presidency, a position he’ll hold until 2015, and that he has been occupying since 2006. After declaring the symbols “that represented the old colonial and neo-liberal state” officially abolished, he described as “great tectonic faults” the urgent problems and shortages that existed in the South American nation until 2005. Garcia, after promising loyalty to the president elect, he defined himself as “a revolutionary, an old Bolshevik and a follower of Tupac Amaru at the same time.” Present in the ceremony were Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa and Fernando Lugo, presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay in that order, as well as Ramiro Valdes, vice-president of the Cuban councils of State and Ministers; Felipe of Bourbon, Prince of Asturias; and outgoing Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, among other top leaders. On December 6, with 64 % of votes in favor, Evo Morales Ayma, first head of state of Amerindian origin of Bolivia and South America, became his country’s president for second time. (Cubaminrex - acn) |