In a new chapter of the fierce internal conflict that shakes the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), the former president of Bolivia Evo Morales (2006-2019) He was excluded from the new national leadership of the ruling partywhich was formed this Sunday in a Congress promoted by the followers of the Government of Luis Arcein the city of El Alto.
“Evo Morales is the former president of the MAS instrument, there is a new president who is my person,” he indicated. Grover Garcia who was elected as leader of the party and is a representative of the Single Trade Union Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia (Csutcb), an organization related to the Bolivian Government.
García stated, after taking the oath as the new president of the MAS, that “de-democracy and discrimination have ended” and that in the next 90 days they will call a congress to change the party’s statutes to “refound” it.
More than 6,000 MAS militants attended the ‘Héroes de Octubre’ sports center in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, where after three days of meetings the ruling party elected a new board, leaving out former president Morales.
“I cannot be with Evo Morales, he is a former president who surely should be in Chapare, we are going to work with social organizations and we are going to strongly support the management of Lucho (Arce),” García told the media.
Likewise, the new leader of the ruling party expressed that “the mobilizations are against the people, against the families and it is not correct,” in response to the warnings from the sectors close to Morales of block roads in protest against the political meeting of those close to the president.
Morales and his followers described this conclave promoted by the Government as “illegal”, alleging that only the former president, as the maximum leader of the MAS, could convene it.
The day before, Morales warned that he will be his party’s presidential candidate for the 2025 presidential elections. “by hook or by crook”during a message to his followers in the Cochabamba region.
The former president assured that he is qualified to be a candidate, despite the fact that the Plurinational Constitutional Court Bolivian government issued a ruling in December stating that Indefinite election “is not a human right”. This sentence indicates that a person can be president of the country for only two terms, either continuously or discontinuously. Morales, meanwhile, governed for three periods: from 2006 to 2010, from 2010 to 2014; and from 2014 to 2019.
The former president also said that he has the support and “is defended” by “left-wing governments in Latin America,” and pointed out the presidents as his allies. Lula da Silvafrom Brazil, and the dictator Nicolas Madurofrom Venezuela.
The MAS bloc that supports Morales called its own congress for July 10 in the town of Villa Tunari, in the Tropics of Cochabamba, the former president’s main political and union stronghold.
Arce and Morales have been estranged since 2021, and last year their differences deepened due to the holding of a national party congress in which, in the absence of the president and his loyal sectors, The former president was ratified as leader of the MAS and named “sole candidate” for the 2025 elections.
Arce did not attend that meeting considering that the social organizations, the basis of the party, were not properly represented.
Tensions increased after the TSE decided to annul the 2023 congress and instruct that a new consensual one be called, something on which both pro-government factions also did not agree.
(With information from EFE)
