By Eduardo Garcia LA PAZ, Sept 8 (Reuters) - A string of violent protests have forced the assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution to suspend sessions for a month, putting leftist President Evo Morales' promise to deliver a new constitution this year at risk. Assembly President Silvia Lazarte announced the recess late on Friday, citing concerns about delegates' safety after days of protests in the central city of Sucre, site of the assembly. Protesters -- many of them university students -- calling for the relocation of Bolivia's capital have demonstrated in recent days vowing to prevent the assembly from convening. Delegates had not met for three weeks because of the protests. "It is surrounded by wire and guarded by university students and groups that break the law," Lazarte said, referring to the theater where the assembly meets. A proposal to relocate Bolivia's government to Sucre, a city of 250,000 people about 435 miles (700 km) southeast of La Paz, is backed by the rightist opposition that is concentrated in wealthier, eastern Bolivia. Sucre was Bolivia's capital before a 19th-century civil war led a move to La Paz and retains the historic title of constitutional capital and is home to the Supreme Court. Protesters are demanding the executive and legislative powers be moved there from La Paz, a Morales' stronghold high in the Bolivian Andes. This is the second major delay of the assembly, whose one-year mandate was recently extended until December after bitter infighting over voting rules caused a six-month gridlock. Morales, an Aymara Indian from a poor background, won a December 2005 election on pledges to nationalize the oil and gas industries and produce a new constitution to empower the poor indigenous majority. He has denounced the protests as an attempt by the country's farming and business elites to derail his reformist agenda in favor of the poor. (Additional reporting by Carlos Quiroga)
