La Paz, Bolivia - Church and political leaders met President Carlos Mesa and discussed snap elections to quell two weeks of bitter unrest over impoverished Bolivia's mammoth gas reserves.
Bolivia has nearly ground to a halt as its farmers and workers occupy downtown La Paz demanding nationalization of gas reserves second in South America only to Venezuela.
Meanwhile, business leaders in more prosperous eastern Bolivia, where oil and gas fields are located, seek an autonomy close to secession.
Both sides have brushed off Mesa's pleas for calm and a resolution of differences through a constitutional convention.
Mesa, a caretaker president, has said he would finish out his predecessor's term in 2007. However, on Sunday he met at Cardinal Julio Terrazas' home in Santa Cruz with the heads of Bolivia's Senate, Chamber of Deputies and Supreme Court to discuss holding elections ahead of schedule.
Snap elections "is an idea that is gaining momentum as a way out of the problem," said Senate president Hormando Vaca Diez who attended the meeting.
For that to happen, Mesa and the presidents of both houses of the legislature would have to resign.
House of Deputies president Mario Cossio said, after meeting Mesa, he had "no qualms about resigning."
Fourth in the constitutional line of succession is the president of the Supreme Court, who could call elections once the other three resigned.
"Nothing has been defined, but once the moment arrives, I will give my opinion," Supreme Court president Eduardo Rodriguez Veltze said after attending the talks.
Cardinal Terrazas asked protesting Bolivians to "end the pressure tactics that for weeks have choked the residents of La Paz and have hurt most of all the poor."
Jesus Juarez, bishop of Los Altos, a hotbed of unrest just outside La Paz, said that the Roman Catholic hierarchy has been meeting with leaders of protesting labor unions, coca farmers, community organizations and teachers.
"We want to know how they see the situation, what solutions they would propose and their commitment to continue this search for peace in Bolivia," said Juarez.
Evo Morales, largely responsible for leading the 2003 protests that toppled Bolivia's last elected president, was not quick to call for Mesa's resignation. "I will have to consult, talk with my constituents and analyze it to give an opinion," said the leader of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) and of Bolivia's coca growers.
Abel Mamani, leader of the Neighborhood Youth Front of El Alto, agreed that new elections was a democratic way out for Mesa.
"But what protesters want is the nationalization of gas and oil," he said.
The latest round of protests began May 17, when Congress gave Bolivia a greater take of gas production.
Although oil companies claimed the law gave the government too much control, protesters said it fell short of nationalization.
Bolivia, the poorest nation in South America, has 48.7 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.
Mesa was vice president when then-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was toppled in 2003 during unrest, also over Bolivia's gas.