The Plurinational Constitutional Court of Bolivia (TCP) accepted an opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court) on the matter and suspended the indefinite re-election in the country this Friday with a ruling disqualifying the candidacy of former President Evo Morales in the 2025 elections .
Constitutional Judgment 1010/2023, adopted by the TCP on December 29, stipulates that re-election is “not a human right” and can therefore be restricted by law. This overturns a previous judgment of this court in 2017 which held to the contrary. That latest ruling allowed Morales to run for his third re-election and sparked a movement of citizen rejection that ended in 2019 with the ouster of Bolivia's president after he won elections that year, which were later canceled amid allegations of fraud.
The TCP has also pointed out that “the President and Vice President in Bolivia can only exercise their mandate for two consecutive or intermittent periods.” This clause means the disqualification of Morales from future elections, since the politician has already governed in three periods: 2006-2009; 2009-2014 and 2014-2019. Furthermore, it implies an amendment to the Constitution that only prohibits more than two consecutive terms in office and does not restrict or even refer to discontinuous re-elections anywhere. According to lawyer Farit Rojas, this is an “over-interpretation” of the constitution by the TCP. Rojas recalled that in Bolivia's political history, discontinuous re-elections have always been allowed. According to this expert, it is therefore an innovation that is not supported by the wording of the Basic Charter of Bolivia.
Evo Morales is in total confrontation with the government of President Luis Arce, which in recent years has gone from being his dolphin to his “worst enemy,” as the former president himself described it. Morales has already declared himself a candidate for 2025 and is currently fighting the ruling party and the electoral court to keep the party he founded, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), in his hands. The former president had repeatedly denounced that Arce and his Justice Minister Iván Lima intended to disqualify him from the next elections. He also announced that in return for this exclusion, the executive would support the Constitutional Court in expanding its functions and the mandate of the other judicial authorities. The judges were scheduled to leave office on December 31, but judicial elections scheduled for this year have not been called. The “self-extension” was completed on December 12th. Then the opposition complained that the TCP and the other courts, in coordination with Minister Lima, sabotaged the judicial elections and ensured that the current authorities remained in their positions indefinitely. In any case, to avoid further questions, the re-election decision was approved within the original term of the TCP; For this reason, this committee had to meet in the middle of the traditional end-of-year holiday break.
While the TCP restricted the re-election of presidents, vice presidents, senators and deputies, it extended this benefit to judges, including members of the Constitutional Court itself, by allowing them to opt for re-election to a court other than this one they were elected. You are occupying a position. Until now, the re-election of judges was absolutely forbidden.
Some opposition spokesmen have hailed the TCP's restriction of re-election and the disqualification of Morales as an achievement of the democratic struggle of the Bolivian people against Morales' continuity. “Evo: You had 3 mandates, you used 2, you owe us 1, no MORE, never again,” wrote former right-wing president Jorge Quiroga on X (formerly Twitter). Fernando Camacho, governor of Santa Cruz, who is currently in prison on charges related to his role in the overthrow of Morales, also expressed in a statement that “with this TCP ruling, we Bolivians ensure that an apprentice of a tyrant, the tramples on the vote.”, ignores a referendum, commits fraud, with the sole intention of staying in power.” This support for the TCP decision does not take into account that without Morales in the election campaign, the prospects of Arce increasing can mobilize the majority of the Bolivian left, and at the same time reduce the options of other movements. Guidelines.