Seven months after replacing incumbent President Luis Arce, the ruling Movement Towards Socialism ( MAS ) party in Bolivia removed former president Evo Morales from the party’s leadership on Sunday.
In a power battle between the two, Morales was removed from the MAS group in October after being banned from the MAS group. Morales ‘ term-limitation for running for president is based on the Bolivian Constitution, which the Bolivian Constitutional Court upheld in January. His time in power, from 2006 to 2019, was marked by promoting the production of cocaine, the flower used to make cocaine, accusations of pedophilia, including Morales reportedly fathering a kid with a slight, and rampant oppression of political opponents.
After the Organization of American States ( OAS ) found evidence of election fraud, Morales voluntarily resigned and fled to Mexico in 2019. After “winning” the previous standard presidential election, he and the majority of the MAS’s pro-More leadership fled the country.
Despite Bolivia’s law establishing a utmost two-term term limit for a president and vice president, he has since repeatedly asserted that he was the victim of a” revolution” and that he is qualified to run for a second term. Through a number of court decisions, one of which largely gave him a “free” first word that did no” matter” toward the two-term control, Morales was able to circumvent the democratic term limits in the past.
Morales vowed to support him on the ballot this trip, promising to support him regardless of the law, and threatened to launch organized protests against the ruling party.
At an occasion in Cochabamba on Saturday preceding his expulsion from MAS management, Morales declared , that he would run for president” a new buenas o las malas”, an idiom about translating to” by hook or by crook” or” by any means required”. If the nation complied with its constitution and prevented him from being cast in the election, Morales threatened to start riots and roadblockades.
” Up to this moment we are legally and constitutionally qualified to be president, that is not under debate”, Morales incorrectly claimed. They are trying to figure out how to eliminate, disqualify me using the self-extensions they are pursuing. They are unable to accomplish that because of the conflict.”
Morales also asserted that he has the support and “is defended” by “leftist governments of Latin America”, pointing out that Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio” Lula” da Silva and Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro are among his allies.
Over 6, 000 MAS members gathered for a three-day event in El Alto, a city close to La Paz, Bolivia’s capital city, over the weekend. The pro-Arce faction of the splintered socialist party promoted the event, which ended on Sunday night, and Grover Garca, the party’s new leader, was elected president.
When Garca took the oath of office as the new leader of MAS, she claimed that” the finger-pointing and discrimination have ended.” She represents the pro-government trade union CSUTCB. He announced that a new MAS congress would be held in the next 90 days to change the party’s statutes to “re- found” it, echoing calls made by Arce shortly before GarcÃa’s election.
” Evo Morales is the former president of the MAS instrument, there is a new president who is me”, GarcÃa proclaimed to local media.
” I cannot be with Evo Morales, he is a former president who must surely be in the Chapare]drug trafficking cartel], we are going to work with the social organizations and we will strongly support the administration of Lucho]Arce’s local nickname ]”, he continued.
GarcÃa condemned Morales ‘ threats of blockades, saying” the mobilizations are against the people, against the families and it is not correct”.
After Morales ‘ ouster, Arce stated in a social media post that “never again should our social organizations be relegated from their own political project.”
In recent months, the rift between Morales and Arce split the ruling MAS party in two factions, one supporting former President Morales and one supporting Arce, the current president and Morales ‘ “disowned” successor.
Morales ‘ decision to try to force his way onto the 2019 election ballot is at the heart of the conflict between Arce and Morales. A Morales-friendly court ruled in 2017 that the president’s term limits were a “violation” of his human rights, which in turn gave him the right to run for president once more in October 2019. Morales is widely believed to have forcibly ruled out the 2017 ruling in the courts.
Morales allegedly “won” the 2019 election fraudulently, prompting international condemnation and local protests, and ultimately Morales ‘ resignation. After resigning, Morales fled to Mexico with most of his cabinet of ministers.
Jeanine ez, a conservative senator and the then second vice president of the Bolivian Chamber of Senators, swore her as president because she was the highest-ranking member of the line of succession who had not fled Mexico.
In a session of Congress without a quorum on November 12, 2019, Deputy Senate speaker Jeanine Anez waves from the Quemado Palace balcony in La Paz. ( AIZAR RALDES/AFP via Getty )
In the 2020 election, MAS’s return to power and the election of the current socialist president Luis Arce were all choices made by ez.
Following Arce’s election, a number of events led to Morales ‘ return to Bolivia and Moralez’s conviction by the ruling socialists for allegedly having organized a” coup” against Morales.
The controversial 2017 decision was overturned in a ruling by the Bolivian Constitutional Court (TCP), which stated that the idea of an indefinite presidential reelection “is not a human right.” Despite his continuing efforts to run for president in 2025, Morales has ordered his sympathizers to riot and launch blockades demanding new high justices for Bolivia.
Venezuelan author Christian K. Caruzo documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter , here.
