Bolivian police use tear gas to clear a protest by miners on Tuesday Aug. 5, 2008, during which two miners were reported dead. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was forced to cancel a visit to Bolivia on Tuesday after protests against his left-wing ally, President Evo Morales, turned violent.

Chavez, not for the first time, accused the United States of fomenting unrest in Bolivia, which since Morales’ election victory in 2005 has joined the clique of Chavez-led leftist-ruled countries hostile towards what they refer to as “the Empire.”

Bolivia's President Evo Morales waves to supporters upon his arrival in the city of Villamontes, Bolivia Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2008. (AP Photo)

On Sunday, Morales faces an election that could end his tenure. Voters will decide whether he, the vice president and the governors of eight of Bolivia’s nine “departments” or provinces should stay in office. Morales, who won with 54 percent of the vote in 2005, is expected to win. If he loses, new elections must be held.

Morales proposed the recall referendum in a bid to consolidate his power, at a time when four departments, unhappy with policies including the nationalization of natural gas resources, are pressing for more autonomy from the central government. Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the region, after Venezuela.

Chavez and Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had planned to travel together and meet with Morales in gas-rich Tarija – one of the four provinces seeking more autonomy – but anti-Morales protests at the airport there turned violent. Elsewhere in the country, clashes between police and protesting miners left two people dead.

Speaking in Buenos Aires, Chavez said he decided to call off the trip after talking by phone to Morales. He called the protests “a resurrection of fascism” and accused the U.S. of doing everything in its power “to prevent our union,” Venezuela’s El Universal reported.

The Venezuelan leader has painted Morales’ political troubles – like his own – as part of an attack by enemies of progress against his efforts to deepen regional “integration” as a bulwark against U.S. influence.

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, center, joins hands with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left, and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in Buenos Aires, Aug. 4, 2008. (AP Photo/Argentina's Presidency)

Earlier, Chavez held talks in the Argentine capital with Fernandez and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil.

According to a report in Cuba’s Granma newspaper, the three leaders affirmed their “political alliance.” It quoted Chavez as saying his goal was “to deepen the Caracas-Brasilia-Buenos Aires axis.”

Brazil and Argentina are Latin America’s biggest and most economically developed countries.

When he arrived in Buenos Aires for the meetings on Monday, Chavez said he hoped that the next occupant of the White House “understands that in South America there is a legitimate, peaceful and democratic revolutionary process underway.”

“The next U.S. president has to respect that,” the Venezuelan state news agency ABN quoted him as saying.