INTERVIEW-Bolivia's Morales says elites resent Indian power

By Eduardo Garcia

RIBERALTA, Bolivia, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales says wealthy elites are trying to block his leftist reforms because they do not like having an Indian leading the South American country.

Less than two years since becoming Bolivia's first indigenous leader, Morales is facing fierce opposition from rightist rivals and sometimes-violent street protests have flared in the poor nation in recent months.

Morales, who herded llamas in the Andes as a boy before farming coca, told Reuters in an interview discrimination persisted against the indigenous majority in Bolivia.

"What worries me most are the actions of the oligarchy, the dirty war. Discrimination continues," he said late on Saturday on a military plane from the Amazon town of Riberalta.

"In some cities, groups of people talk about wearing out the Indian, knocking the Indian out ... They cannot accept that an Indian is governing well," said Morales, dressed in jeans.

Recent polls indicate that Morales has a popularity rating of about 57 percent, but the protests have put a strain on his government and stalled his effort to reform the constitution to empower indigenous Bolivians.

He accuses the rightist opposition and civic leaders of orchestrating the protests in eastern regions in a bid to derail the assembly and weaken him. Some Morales critics in the east say he wants to impose an Indian government.

Bolivia can be roughly divided along ethnic lines, with the eastern lowlands home to European descendants and indigenous peoples concentrated in the Andean west.