LA PAZ, June 27 — The Bolivian government today accused the United States of launching new attacks on the country’s stability, qualifying them as political provocations.

Juan Ramón Quintana, minister of the presidency, responded in those terms to a statement by Washington’s top anti-drug official, John Walters, who said that the Bolivian administration is not cooperating sufficiently with Washington in the combating drug trafficking.

Those affirmations, like previous ones by an official from the USAID agency regarding supposed anti-democratic threats in Bolivia, are rash, unfounded and motivated by purely political reasons, Quintana said, according to PL.

For his part, President Evo Morales said yesterday that George W. Bush is using false accusations to try to damage the majority support enjoyed by the governing party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), for the upcoming Constituent Assembly elections (July 2).

He predicted that the MAS would win at least 70% of the vote, to consolidate and deepen the process of change begun by his government via a new Constitution.

At the same time, the president reiterated his opposition to provincial autonomy, which would be subject to a referendum, held simultaneously with the Constituent Assembly election.

President Morales denied that his intense activity in inaugurating social programs is part of a MAS election campaign, and said that instead, it corresponds to his administration’s priorities in health and education.