• Controversial Evo Morales besieges his dauphin and prepares his return to power
  • Leadership Evo Morales confronts President Arce

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales, one of the great political dinosaurs of the Americas, has been given his own medicine. The Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP), based on the rulings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), has annulled the indefinite presidential re-election to establish that the president can only exercise his mandate for two continuous or discontinuous terms. It would therefore not be a "human right", as the Constitutional Court held six years ago.

The same court and the referendums that Evo once forced to be re-elected for three terms have now turned against him, as this decision would prevent the revolutionary leader from running for president in 2025. In addition, it also opens the door for his great enemy, President Luis Arce, to run for re-election. Both leaders of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and their supporters are engaged in a fratricidal war for power.

"The political sentence of the self-extended TCP is proof of the complicity of some magistrates with the black plan executed by the government on the orders of the empire and with the conspiracy of the Bolivian right. As they did in 2002 when they expelled us from Congress, the neoliberals are uniting to try to outlaw the MAS and eliminate them politically and even physically. No fear. The struggle continues!" countered Morales as soon as he learned of the judicial barrage against his aspirations for power. The justices made this momentous decision 48 hours before the end of their six-year term.

It was precisely Morales' eagerness to perpetuate himself at the head of the country that precipitated the 2019 crisis and his downfall. The former president ignored the will of the people in the 2016 referendum, when 51.30% of Bolivians said no to his claim to remain at the helm of the country. Evo also used the courts to open up the possibility for him to go to the polls.

The crisis erupted when the revolutionary candidate did not reach a sufficient number of supporters in the first round of October 2019, but the ruling party orchestrated an electoral operation to twist the national will. The Organization of American States (OAS) discovered the fraud and agreed with those protesting in the street. A succession of uprisings ended with Morales' flight from the country, who went into exile in Mexico and Argentina.

In the presidential elections a year later, Arce, supported by Morales, clearly prevailed in the race, with more than 50% of the support. The return of the indigenous revolution to power also made it possible for Morales to end his exile. A few months later, friction began between the two political sectors.

Evo's followers did not shy away from the court decision and announced that they will nominate their leader, confident in what the Supreme Electoral Tribunal decides. In the struggle to win the presidential nomination, both candidates have thrown constant accusations at each other. For the evistas, the TCP's ruling is part of a plan drawn up by the Ministry of Justice. On the other hand, the Arcistas, who have their own parliamentary bloc in the Legislative Assembly, are firm in defending the re-election of their president.

One of the main claims by the TCP is the former opposition presidential candidate, Carlos Mesa, since this sentence ratifies what has already been denounced: "Morales violated the Constitution, international norms, laws and the decision of the people when he imposed his candidacy in 2019 with the complicity of the TCP. They stole the presidency from us with monumental fraud and corrupted democracy. There can be no impunity for those who did so much damage to the country or for their accomplices."

"The TCP puts an end to Evo Morales' delirium of re-electing himself forever," added former President Jeanine Áñez, who has now become a political prisoner of the revolution.

  • Evo Morales
  • Bolivia