BOLIVIAN President Luis Arce has announced national referendums on the removal of fuel subsidies and the constitutionality of presidential re-elections.

Mr Arce did not give a date for the votes during a speech on Tuesday in the southern city of Sucre, Bolivia’s historical capital, as the country marked the 199th anniversary of its independence.

He defended the referendum proposal as a way to dispel some of the uncertainty that Bolivians have endured for months, promising that the gesture was not about “electoral calculations or personal ambitions.”