President Evo Morales went on a hunger strike on Thursday to demand Bolivia's Congress pass an electoral law that could make it easier for him to win control of the legislature in December's general election.
Tensions flared last week when members of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party clashed with the opposition over the bill, which could help the leftist president by assigning more seats to poorer, rural areas.
Allies of Morales control the lower house in the Andean country, but the opposition holds a majority in the Senate, allowing his opponents to block the election reform proposal.
"Faced with the negligence of a bunch of neoliberal lawmakers, we have no choice but to take this step (hunger strike) ... they don't want to pass a law that guarantees the implementation of the constitution," Morales told reporters at the presidential palace in La Paz.