Bolivia's new constitution would empower Indian majority

Bolivian Indians on Sunday threw their support behind a new constitution aimed at increasing their strength while allowing leftist President Evo Morales a shot at staying in power through 2014.

Voters were expected to easily approve the measure in a country whose Indian majority has been long oppressed.
But opposition from Bolivia's white and mestizo populations and disputes over the document's wording foreshadowed yet more political turmoil in a divided nation where tensions over race and class have recently turned deadly.

Bolivia's first Indian president, Morales says the charter will "decolonize" South America's poorest country by recovering indigenous values lost under centuries of oppression dating back to the Spanish conquest.

The proposed document, for example, would create a new Congress with seats reserved for Bolivia's smaller indigenous groups and eliminates any mention of The Roman Catholic Church, instead recognizing and honoring the Pachamama, an Andean earth deity.