2023-12-30 23:52:00
The Constitutional Court in Bolivia has banned former President Evo Morales from taking part in the 2025 presidential election. Morales described the decision as “political” and as evidence of the “complicity of some judges with the black plan” of the government of President Luis Arce, as he said on the platform X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. He only announced in September that he wanted to run for office again in the next election.
The 82-page ruling, cited by local media, said: “Restricting the possibility of indefinite re-election is an appropriate measure to ensure that a person does not remain in power.” In doing so, the court overturned a previous decision from 2017, which described re-election as a “human right”.
A year in exile
Morales became the South American country’s first indigenous president in 2006. After the Constitutional Court’s decision to declare term limits invalid, he ran for a fourth re-election in October 2019. The former coca grower leader declared himself the winner of the presidential election, and the opposition accused him of fraud. Unrest broke out, and under pressure from the military, Morales resigned and spent a year in exile in Mexico and Argentina. His supporters spoke of a coup.
Published/Updated: Recommendations: 25 Hildegard Willer Published/Updated: Recommendations: 18 Tjerk Brühwiller, São Paulo Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 9
The conservative Jeanine Áñez became interim president, and a new election in October 2020 was won by Luis Arce from Morales’ socialist MAS party. Áñez was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2022 for dereliction of duty and constitutional violations. Human rights activists expressed concern about the independence of the Bolivian judiciary.
Morales and Arce, his former economy minister, have now fallen out. The government wanted to eliminate him, the former head of state said in September before announcing his candidacy.
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