Opposition groups in Bolivia called Tuesday for a nationwide general strike following violent protests over election results that seemed set to hand another term to long-time president Evo Morales.
Representatives of civil society organizations from Bolivia’s six regions backed a call to extend a strike originally set for Tuesday in the country’s largest city Santa Cruz.
The general strike comes into effect at midnight Tuesday (0300 GMT) and would “continue until democracy and the will of the citizens are respected,” the organizations said.
Opposition supporters reacted with fury to delayed results that showed Morales edging towards the 10 percentage-point margin he needed to win in the first round.
But preliminary results released earlier had showed opposition candidate Carlos Mesa coming in a close second in Sunday’s polls and forcing a run-off second round.
Monitors from the Organization of American States (OAS) said the delayed results showed a “drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results” that “clearly indicated a second round.”
The government on Tuesday asked the OAS to conduct an audit of the vote counting process “as soon as possible”.
Foreign Minister Diego Pary told reporters the government has asked the international body “to send a commission to conduct an audit of the entire official vote counting process.”
An audit would help determine whether votes were counted accurately and whether proper procedures were followed.
