Bolivia’s electoral tribunal bans ex-leader Morales and suspends a key candidate, drawing backlash

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia’s top electoral tribunal on Tuesday disqualified former President Evo Morales from running in the August presidential vote and suspended the candidacy of the other main leftist contender, immediately vaulting President Luis Arce’s governing socialist party into the ranks of front-runners despite its unpopularity.

The moves targeted the two strongest leftist challengers to Arce’s nominee: Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who governed the country from 2006 until his ouster in 2019, and Andrónico Rodríguez, the young Senate president who hails from Morales’ rural coca-growing bastion.

Both Morales and Rodríguez vowed to fight the decisions and condemned them as a blow to the Andean nation’s fragile democracy.

“The parties that want to support me have been persecuted,” Morales, who still commands fervent support in his tropical highland stronghold, told a local radio show. “The battle is not lost. We will wage a social and legal battle.”

On social media, he voiced alarm over “the grave threat facing democracy today.”

Morales has repeatedly promised that Bolivia would “convulse” if the electoral tribunal bars him from the race, heightening a sense of crisis in the run-up to the deeply polarized vote scheduled for Aug. 17.

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President Arce dismissed their criticism, asking only that “the electoral dispute not generate political and economic instability.”

Rodríguez — a fresh-faced 36-year-old candidate who generated excitement among voters disillusioned with Morales’ fifth presidential bid and outraged with Arce’s handling of Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in 40 years — also called for protests against what he called “a political decision” to suspend his candidacy.

“No ruling or judicial decision driven by political interests can overrule the sovereign will of the people,” he wrote on X.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal gave narrow, technical reasons for the decisions as the window closed for candidates to register their political parties.

A power struggle between Morales and his former ally and finance minister, President Arce, has fractured their dominant Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, forcing Morales to break off and create his own political party.

Arce, whose popularity has plunged as inflation surges and fuel shortages paralyze the country, dropped out of the race last week and nominated his senior minister, Eduardo del Castillo, as the MAS party candidate.

A stern-faced lawyer and loyalist of Arce who oversaw police crackdowns on anti-government protests over the last year, Del Castillo has struggled to summon the kind of support enjoyed by Morales and Rodríguez.

Divisions are also splitting the vote on the right, which has left the anti-MAS movement without a clear front-runner to seize on what could otherwise be the opposition’s first real shot at victory after almost two decades of left-wing rule.

According to the list published Tuesday by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the successfully registered opposition candidates include Samuel Doria Medina, 66, a former cement tycoon notorious for his multiple unsuccessful presidential bids.

There’s also Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who promoted market-friendly reforms as president from 2001-2002 after serving as vice president to the late military dictator, Hugo Banzer, in a government accused of widespread human rights abuses.

“Morales is out of the race,” Tahuichi Tahuichi, a member of the board, declared on Tuesday.

Morales’ disqualification, though controversial, had been expected. His recently formed political faction, “Evo Pueblo,” lacks official party status, the electoral tribunal said, while an allied party that planned to host his candidacy failed to meet other legal requirements.

Even as Morales continued to insist on the legitimacy of his candidacy, a divisive ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal that bans citizens from running for more than two presidential terms also complicates his path back to the presidency.

Some analysts see that ruling — made by Arce-allied judges that interfered in judicial elections to extend their own terms — as emblematic of how the judiciary in Bolivia has been undermined by political wrangling.

“Arce benefited from the rapid deterioration of the already weak justice system, failed to enact desperately needed reforms and manipulated the courts to his advantage,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group.

“This lack of due process and rule of law make the upcoming elections a free-for-all with an unpredictable, unsustainable outcome.”

More surprising was the tribunal’s decision to suspend Rodríguez’s candidacy pending a hearing on the legality of his political alliance. Judges accepted his appeal and set a first tribunal session for Wednesday.

The new constraints on the candidates also drew criticism even from officials within the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

“The democratic system is at risk by legal actions affecting the normal development of elections,” wrote Francisco Vargas, a member of the electoral body. “I am alerting the country and the international community.”

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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