The attention of Latin America has been riveted on Venezuela in recent weeks and with good reason, given Hugo Chavez' naked attempt to extend his presidency indefinitely and the voters' historic rejection of those designs in last Sunday's referendum. But farther to the south in Bolivia, Chavez' closet ally in the region this side of Fidel Castro may be laying the groundwork for the dismantling of democracy in South America's poorest nation. When Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia two years ago this month, he pledged to re-write the nation's constitution in ways that would end the chronic state of ungovernability that forced President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and his successor Carlos Mesa to leave office before the scheduled end of their terms. A constitutional assembly was duly sworn in last year but soon deadlocked over the insistence of opposition party delegates that each article of the political charter under discussion required a two-thirds majority vote.

Months dragged on without any progress being made in the assembly towards finishing its work in the Bolivian city of Sucre, but as a December 14 deadline approaches political unrest is on the rise across the country and Morales' allies seem poised to ram a new constitution down the opposition's throats. The assembly suspended its proceedings last September when anti-government protesters clashed with police in the streets of Sucre. Tensions ratcheted upwards again last month when pro-government delegates filed into a military academy on the outskirts of the city instead of the downtown theater where they had previously been gathering. Opposition delegates refused to attend the November 23 session on the academy's premises, and in their absence the supporters of Morales approved a draft constitution that would, among other things, allow the president to be reelected repeatedly (does that sound familiar to any Chavez watchers out there?) and abolish the opposition-controlled upper chamber of the national congress. Two days of violent clashes ensued between demonstrators and army troops that left one university student dead.

The renewed turmoil prompted the national congress to approve a proposal last week that would move the constitutional assembly from Sucre to the capital city of La Paz, a vote that took place without the presence of opposition lawmakers. Six provinces controlled by opposition parties responded with the launch of a general strike on the day following the congressional vote, and last Friday street battles erupted in the town of Cobija after anti-government activists torched the house of a senator.

All of this went largely unnoticed by the outside world until a video surfaced last week of a rally where pro-Morales indigenous militants decapitated two dogs wearing signs that bore the names of prominent opposition politicians. The horrific episode took place in the presence of Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linares, and the chilling message was crystal clear: opposition leaders could meet the same fate as the doomed canines if they don't cease their efforts to prevent Morales' backers in the assembly from unilaterally adopting a new constitution for Bolivia. Four provincial governors from the opposition's ranks are in New York and Washington this week to share their concerns about recent developments in Bolivia with officials of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. "The government of Evo Morales is carrying out a coup d'etat against democracy and the rule of law," Santa Cruz province governor Ruben Costas told reporters in Miami on Monday. "What is happening today in Bolivia is the dangerous advance of 'democratic dictatorships', financed and fomented by Hugo Chavez, that seek to replace representative democracy." The days leading up to the December 14 deadline will be crucial, says Costas, and hopefully the outside world will now pay more attention to what is happening on the ground inside Bolivia.