La Paz, June 17 (EFE).- The Andean Community (CAN) today joined the group of organizations that have committed themselves to cooperate with Bolivia in the transition process the country embarked upon last week, reported the Secretary General of the regional organization, Allan Wagner.

The former Foreign Minister of Peru was received on an official visit to Bolivia by its President, Eduardo Rodríguez, and Foreign Minister Armando Loaiza before meeting with other Bolivian political and social leaders.

Wagner reported that he had informed Rodríguez about the agenda to be discussed at the forthcoming Andean Presidential Summit in Lima this coming July 18 and had also expressed the willingness of the CAN General Secretariat to support the country in its process of democratic transition.

According to the Secretary General, the Bolivian President requested the organization’s collaboration in performing the tasks required for the transition process that it is responsible for carrying out over the next few months.

The United Nations Organization had previously agreed to give the country technical assistance in conducting the forthcoming advance general election that will most likely be held at the end of this year or beginning of the next.

Wagner stressed that the political and social crises in some of the region’s countries “call for deep reflection within the CAN and in others of the institution’s bodies and will doubtlessly be the key topic for discussion at the Andean Summit” to be held next month in the Peruvian capital.

"The political system is in crisis and the State no longer gives society what it needs” and, furthermore, the steady “deterioration of relations between society and State and the very relations within society are leading to a confrontation,” he declared somberly.

He warned that poverty, exclusion and inequality have reached such high levels that the people are reacting, protesting also against the discrimination to which they are subjected in national systems of representation.

“The erosion of the political and State system combined with rising poverty and inequality have touched off the present crisis,” the former Peruvian Foreign Minister explained at the press conference in the Government Palace of La Paz.

Even so, he found it encouraging that the political and social forces express themselves within the democratic system in search of a change in living conditions, the course that should be taken to reinforce institutions in the region.

Wagner plans, after conversing with the Bolivian Head of State, to meet with the Presidents of the Senate, Hormando Vaca Díez, and of the House of Deputies, Mario Cossío, as well as with the recently appointed Presidential Delegate for Political Matters, Jorge Lazarte, and the Mayor of La Paz and Leader of the Sin Miedo (Without Fear) Movement, Juan del Granado.

Tomorrow, Saturday, Wagner has an appointment with the Chairman of Bolivia’s Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Julio Terrazas, in the city of Santa Cruz, and with local entrepreneurs there before traveling to Asuncion to attend the MERCOSUR Summit. EFE