2023-12-31 00:37:00
He Constitutional Court of Bolivia disqualified the former president Evo Morales as a candidate for the presidency in 2025, after canceling the figure of the indefinite reelection which allowed the indigenous leader to run in 2019.
According to the 82-page ruling published this Saturday on the court’s website, restricting indefinite re-nomination “It is an ideal measure to ensure that a person does not remain in power”.
The Court’s decision reverses another adopted in 2017 by that same instance, the highest ranking in constitutional consultations, which had considered reelection as a “human right.”
That appeal allowed Morales to run for a fourth term in 2019. However, the new decision is final.
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The high court ruling also establishes that the president and vice president cannot serve a mandate more than twice, continuously or discontinuously.
Evo Morales resigned from the presidency in 2019 amid accusations of electoral fraud. Upon his departure from the country, he assumed Jeanine Áñezwho is currently facing trials and convictions for an alleged coup d’état.
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The former president (2006-2019) expressed his desire to be a candidate in the presidential elections in 2025, amid verbal fights with Luis Arcecurrent president and who was his political ally and Minister of Economy during almost his entire mandate.
This Saturday, the six coca grower federations of Chapare, the leftist’s political bastion, called an evaluation meeting. Shouting “commander”, Morales called on his supporters to “defend him.”
Evo Morales
“It is a triple alliance: government, right, empire and it is not only against Evo (…). The plan is not only to take away the MAS, but to ban and eliminate Evo as a candidate,” he said.
According to the former president, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States would have an alliance with the Arce government to eliminate him politically.
“(Fernando) Huanacuni (former foreign minister and ally of Morales) has been invited by the head of Latin America at the Iranian Foreign Ministry and told: ‘Take care of Evo.’ The CIA is operating directly so that Evo is not a candidate. Take care of him, There are going to be attacks,” Morales said.
Indefinite reelection
The resolution of the Plurinational Constitutional Court (TCP) is based on a review of the criteria of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IDC Court), which rules out re-election as a human right.
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In 2021, this international consultation body issued an advisory opinion, at the request of the Colombian government, on indefinite reelection.
For constitutional lawyer María Renée Soruco, from the San Pablo Catholic University, “if a reelection was allowed previously, it was violating the Constitution itself.”
“It is a late sentence, this is not about Evo Morales, it is about the defense of the rule of law,” he added.
Orlando Ceballos, part of Morales’ legal team, told Correo del Sur that they will wait “for what happens in the Supreme Electoral Court” to activate “what is appropriate as a means of defense.”
Judicial powers under threat
The faction that supports Morales issued a statement in which it warns of “defense” actions. “If they touch Evo they touch all of us,” they said.
Different opposition figures have described the ruling as a restoration of order in constitutional issues, but they also recalled that it was the same Court that gave Morales the green light to run again.
“The TCP puts an end to Evo Morales’ delirium of being re-elected forever,” wrote Áñez on the social network X.
Along the same lines, the leader of the opposition bench Carlos Mesa pointed out: “Evo Morales and (then vice president Álvaro) García Linera violated the Constitution (…) with the complicity of the TCP.”
AFP
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