Luis Arce, former Minister of the Economy of ousted president Evo Morales, will be a candidate in the presidential election on May 3 in Bolivia, the former head of state announced on Sunday January 19 at a press conference in Buenos Aires.
He will be seconded by former Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca for the post of vice-president and will be supported by the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), the party of Evo Morales, unions and sympathetic organizations, said the former president from Argentina where he has been in exile for more than a month.
>> To read: "Affected by an arrest warrant, the former Bolivian president Evo Morales is campaigning from Argentina"
Luis Arce represents "a bridge between the city and the countryside to continue the process of change. Our peasant movement does not exclude or reject anyone," said Evo Morales, who ruled Bolivia for almost 14 years until his resigned on November 10. "Luis Arce is a guarantee for the national economy," he added about his former Minister of Economy and Public Finance (2006-2017 and January-November 2019).
The candidate dubbed by the former president and David Choquehuanca went to Buenos Aires where around fifty leaders of the MAS, unions and other organizations debated, but neither was present at the Sunday press conference. The candidates will be officially nominated in the Argentine capital on Wednesday.
Father of the Bolivian "economic miracle"
Surveys carried out before this announcement credited the MAS with 20.7% of the voting intentions for the presidential election in May, ahead of the other candidates. The first prosecutor was ex-centrist Carlos Mesa (13.8%).
Luis Arce, 56, from La Paz, is considered to be the father of what some people call the Bolivian "economic miracle", based on a model of social, community and productive development.
After the nationalization of hydrocarbons in 2006, which coincided with an unprecedented boom in oil prices, the Bolivian economy began to grow at an annual rate of 4.9%, and extreme poverty fell by 38.2 % in 2005 to 17.1% in 2018, according to official figures.
Evo Morales resigned from the presidency under pressure from the armed forces after his victory in the first round of the presidential election on October 20, a poll marred by irregularities according to the Organization of American States (OAS).
The interim president, the conservative Jeanine Añez, saw her functions extended in mid-January by the Constitutional Court of Bolivia, until a new executive took over after the elections.
With AFP
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